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TO 

MRS. ARNOLD 

OF FOX HOWE 

THIS BOOK IS (without HER PERMISSION) 

0?JiiiratP5 

BY THE AUTHOR 

WHO OWES MORE THAN HE CAN EVER ACKNOWLEDGE 

OR FORGET 


TO HER AND HERS 


THOMAS HUGHES 


ECLECTIC ENGLISH CLASSICS 


TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL DAYS 

BY 

THOMAS HUGHES 

(AN OLD BOY) 

EDITED BY 

T. W. GOSLING, M.A., Ph.D. 

PRINCIPAL OF LAFAYETTE BLOOM JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 
CINCINNATI, OHIO 


AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 


NEW YORK 


CINCINNATI 


CHICAGO 


Copyright, 1917, by 

American Book Company 


TOM brown’s school DAYS 

W. P. I 


.-V' 

MAR 22 1917 


©CI.A460002 

I 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction 5 

PART I 

Chapter 

I. The Brown Family • 13 

II. The Veast 28 

III. Sundry Wars and Alliances 46 

IV. The Stagecoach 64 

V. Rugby and Football 78 

VI. After the Match 98 

VII. Settling TO THE Collar 114 

VIII. The War of Independence 133 

IX. A Chapter of Accidents 153 

PART II 

I. How THE Tide Turned 173 

II. The New Boy 184 

III. Arthur Makes a Friend 196 

IV. The Bird Fanciers 210 

V. The Fight 222 

VI. Fever in the School 238 

VII. Harry East’s Dilemmas and Deliverances 254 

VHI. Tom Brown’s Last Match 269 

IX. Finis . . . 289 

Notes 296 


3 


As on the one hand it should ever he remembered that we are 
boys, and boys at school, so on the other hand we must bear in 
mind that we form a complete social body ... a society, in 
which, by the nature of the case, we must not only learn, but act 
and live; and act and live not only as boys, but as boys who will 
be men .'" — Rugby Magazine. 


INTRODUCTION 


I. Life of Thomas Hughes 

It is always a pleasure to know a real man. Though it is not 
easy to define the causes which excite admiration, the instinctive 
recognition of true manhood is strong within us. Physical and 
moral courage, high ideals, of personal honor, unselfish devotion 
to the welfare of others, genuine simplicity of nature, capacity for 
friendship, love of family and of home, warm human sym- 
pathy — these are the qualities out of which real manhood is 
made. All of these qualities were inherent in Thomas Hughes. 

In the quiet home at Uffington, Berkshire, England, where he 
was born on October 20, 1822, he had the finest advantage that 
any boy can have — the advantage of a good start in life which 
belongs to one who traces his lineage to clean, high-minded 
parents. 

The early years of Thomas Hughes were marked by no un- 
usual events. The boy was a normal, healthy child, fond of 
exercise and sport, showing no particular scholarly tastes, but 
loving the beautiful country which formed the background of his 
life. In this environment was laid the foundation of that rugged 
physical vigor which later made Hughes a leader in manly games 
and which gave to his whole nature a certain sturdiness that was 
not physical only, but moral and spiritual as well. 

Following the custom in English families of the better type, 
the parents of Thomas Hughes sent him to one of the great pub- 
lic schools, where boys are prepared for entrance into the univer- 
sities. John Hughes, the father of Thomas, had been a con- 
temporary at Oriel College, Oxford, of Dr. Thomas Arnold, the 
headmaster of Rugby. Admiring the high moral qualities of the 
great headmaster, the father elected to send his son at the age of 
twelve to Rugby, an ancient and honorable institution which 
under Dr. Arnold’s leadership was taking on new life and becom- 
ing a pattern for the other great public schools. 

At Rugby, Hughes was distinguished for his athletic ability 
rather than for scholarship. He was captain of both the football 

5 


INTRODUCTION 


6 

and the cricket team. His school career culminated in a cricket 
match at the famous Lords’ Grounds in London. Of the exacting 
duties of captain, Hughes had this to say many years later in 
An Address to Rugby School: ^‘In my last year at school I was 
head of big side, both of cricket and football; and if the boys 
who fill those onerous and responsible posts happen to be present, 
they will bear me out, that he who holds them has very limited 
time to give to inferior industries, such, for instance, as the 
cultivation of Greek lambics or Latin Alcaics.” It will seem to 
many that it would have been a wiser course to observe a better 
proportion between sport and study. However that may be, 
there can be no doubt that Hughes entered fully and joyously 
into the spirit of his school and that he came under the influence 
of good men, who kept his life in right channels. Chief among 
these was Dr. Thomas Arnold, for whom he had a profound and 
lasting admiration. Matthew Arnold, son of the headmaster, 
was one of his Rugby contemporaries who touched his life in- 
timately. Arthur Stanley, who later became the celebrated Dean 
Stanley, was one of the older boys when Hughes entered the 
school; though the two were not close friends at this time, the 
older boy left the imprint of his personality upon the younger. 
It is said that the character of Arthur in Tom Brown's School 
Days is a portrayal of Arthur Stanley. 

Because Hughes took so active a part in all the affairs of his 
school, his testimony concerning schoolboy ethics has unusual 
value. He was himself a boy among boys. Though he was some- 
times guilty of pranks and escapades that subjected him to dis- 
cipline, he never committed any of the serious offenses that 
sometimes mar the character of boys to the end of their days. 
He was no prig. In An Address to Rugby School, to which refer- 
ence has already been made, Hughes gave the following account 
of the schoolboy standards which prevailed during his years at 
Rugby: “In my time there was a sort of proverb current, com- 
prising the whole duty of boys as it was then understood, ‘Fight 
fair, fall light, and hold your tongue.’” 

From Rugby, Hughes went in 1842 to Oriel College, Oxford, 
where he received his B. A. degree in 1845. Though he main- 
tained at college his previous reputation as an athlete, he found 
time for other things. He laid the foundation of political opin- 
ions which remained with him through life. He was profoundly 


INTRODUCTION 7 

impressed by the Anti-Corn-Law agitation, which was then 
occupying a large part of public attention. He wrote later of 
this period of his life: “The noble side of democracy was carrying 
me away.” That his emotions were not of the superficial kind, 
but deep and lasting and charitable, is evidence of the depth of 
his nature. “I have been,” he said years afterwards, “what I 
suppose would be called an advanced Liberal ever since I was at 
Oxford, but have never been able to hate or despise the old- 
fashioned Tory creed; for it was the creed of almost the kindest, 
and bravest, and ablest man I have ever known intimately — 
my own brother.” 

It would be difficult to name a man whose life was more 
definitely molded by school and by college than was that of 
Thomas Hughes. At Rugby he received from Dr. Arnold the 
imprint of that “moral earnestness” which was a distinguishing 
characteristic of the great headmaster and which was to be- 
come a conspicuous, lifelong trait in his own character. The 
social sympathies and the political opinions which were awakened 
and molded at Oxford were so marked that the rest of his life 
was almost wholly given to the practical realization of his Ox- 
ford theories. 

After leaving college he studied law and was called to the bar 
in 1848. In 1869 he became a Queen’s Counselor and in 1870 
he was elected a Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn. In 1882 he was ap- 
pointed a County Court Judge for the Chester district. In this 
office he took keen satisfaction and gave conscientious service. 

He served in Parliament from 1865 to 1874, first as a repre- 
sentative for Lambeth and afterwards for Frome. As a member 
of Parliament he was a conspicuous friend of the working classes. 
Though a Liberal, he was opposed to the Irish Home Rule policy 
of Mr. Gladstone. 

In 1848, the same year in which he was called to the bar, he 
married Miss Frances Ford. To them six children were born- 
three boys and three girls, two of whom died in childhood. A 
son, who was a soldier, died before his father, after having seen 
military service in South Africa. 

The two great life-interests of Thomas Hughes, outside of his 
occupation as lawyer and judge, were literature and social 
service. The necessary duties incident to his calling were per- 
formed with faithfulness and with honor. The absorbing pas- 


8 INTRODUCTION 

sion of his life, however, was for human betterment. In pursuit 
of this ideal he threw himself with whole-hearted devotion 
into the support of plans for social regeneration. He sought to 
break down the barriers which selfish class-consciousness has 
erected; he taught the dignity of labor and the essential worth 
of the individual in the midst of the struggling mass. To him 
social progress was no mere philosophic abstraction, but a creed, 
having the sanction of the Christian religion and finding its 
highest realization in harmony with Christian principles. The 
books which he wrote are permeated with conscious faith in God 
and in man. Literary production was to him not a refuge for the 
dilettant, but an instrument of service to be used as an inspira- 
tion to better living. 

While he was a student of law at Lincoln’s Inn, Hughes came 
under the influence of Frederick Denison Maurice, a saintly man 
whose life was devoted to the welfare of others. Under the lead 
of Maurice, he joined the Christian Socialists. In the work of 
this organization he came into intimate relationship with Charles 
Kingsley. In January, 1854, Hughes joined with others in pro- 
moting the Working Men’s College, in Great Ormond Street, 
London. This college engaged the attention of Hughes to the 
end of his life. After the death of Maurice, Hughes became 
the principal and held the office from 1872 to 1883. His 
book entitled The Manliness of Christ was the outgrowth of 
his work with a Bible class which he conducted while he was 
principal. 

Hughes and his associates were called “Muscular Christians.” 
They were vigorous and aggressive in the championship of their 
beliefs and they allowed free scope for the practice of all the 
manly virtues. For example, although the class in “Sanitary 
Legislation” which Hughes established in the Working Men’s 
College proved a failure, he organized a sparring class, which 
met with great success. Hughes himself so loved all athletic 
sports that he strongly condemned the gambling which is asso- 
ciated with many of them. The sports themselves were too good 
in his opinion, to be endangered by a vicious practice which is 
in no way inherent in them. 

The many cooperative societies which are now to be found 
in England owe much to the zeal of Thomas Hughes. In 1869, 
he was chairman of the first Cooperative Congress. With un- 


INTRODUCTION 


9 

flagging enthusiasm he urged the extension of the principle of 
cooperation in many directions. 

Realizing the difficulties which must be met by the younger 
sons of well-to-do English families — the Will Wimbles of Ad- 
dison’s day — ^Hughes sought an outlet for their ability and 
energy in a kind of cooperative settlement in America at Rugby, 
Tennessee. His faith in men and in his own scheme of social 
regeneration made him oversanguine and led to failure. On 
October 5, 1880, in his address at the opening of the colony, 
which was named Rugby in honor of the school he loved so well, 
he said that his aim and his hope were “to plant on these high- 
lands a community of gentlemen and ladies; not that artificial 
class which goes by these grand names both in Europe and here, 
the joint product both of feudalism and wealth, but a society in 
which the humblest members, who live — as we hope most, if 
not all, of them will to some extent — by the labor of their own 
hands, will be of such strain and culture that they shall be able to 
meet princes in the gate without embarrassment and without 
self-assertion, should any such strange personages ever present 
themselves before the gate-tower of Rugby in the New World.” 
So great was his faith in the plan that he suffered large financial 
loss in furthering it. 

Hughes made his first visit to America in 1870. Two other 
visits were made at considerable intervals. The fame of his 
books had preceded him. Everywhere he was given a hearty 
welcome, especially in the North on account of his strong sup- 
port of the Union cause during the Civil War. We remember 
him gratefully for his generous aid rendered to a great American 
city in the time of adversity. After the great fire in Chicago he 
enlisted the support of English publishers and secured from 
them many gifts of books for the purpose of restoring the losses 
which the Chicago Library had sustained. It is pleasant to 
know that American publishers returned this courtesy after- 
wards by making contributions towards the establishment of a 
library in the colony at Rugby, Tennessee. 

His strong friendship for James Russell Lowell is another tie 
which binds Hughes to America. Lowell’s poetry had made a 
profound impression upon him. He is said to have purchased 
the first copy of the Biglow Papers sold in the British Empire. 
That the admiration was mutual is shown by the following letter 


lo INTRODUCTION 

which Lowell wrote him in 1870, after Hughes had visited Lowell 
in Cambridge, Massachusetts: “You have left so much behind 
that is precious to me, that by and by I know that my room will 
have a virtue in it never there before, because of your presence. 
And now it seems so short — a hail at sea with a God-speed and 
no more. I would rather have the kind of welcome that met 
you in this country than all the shouts of all the crowds on the 
via sacra of fame. There was Tove’ in it, you beloved old boy, 
and no man ever earns that for nothing — unless now and then 
from a woman.” 

The letter just quoted was not the first from Lowell to the 
“beloved old boy.” In 1859 he had written the following: 
“Just behind me is the portrait of some fine old oaks painted for 
me by an artist friend. He wanted a human figure as a standard 
of size, and so put me in as I lay there in the shade reading. So 
long as the canvas lasts I shall lie there with the book in my 
hand, and the book is Tom Brown. ‘A man cannot read a book 
out-of-doors that he does not love.’ Q. E. D.” 

It is doubtless as the interpreter of Tom Brown that Hughes 
will be remembered. Though he wrote other books and though 
he projected himself into the life of his age in numerous other 
ways, many people who know nothing of his connection with 
cooperative societies, with the Christian Socialists, and with the 
Working Men’s College, will think gratefully and tenderly of the 
man who wrote Tom Brown’s School Days. Though it is easy to 
criticize the book for minor imperfections, its vigor, its healthy 
tone, its fidelity to the facts of human nature, its understanding 
of the heart of a boy, commend it to the young and to all those, 
no longer young, who have not lost the freshness and the idealism 
of youth as they have passed on through the years. 

Tom Brown’s School Days was written at Wimbledon, England, 
whither Hughes had removed with his family in 1853. It was 
published anonymously in 1857. Its immediate success was so 
great that five editions were required within nine months. It 
made the author’s name known “wherever the English language 
is spoken; it paved his entrance to the House of Commons; it 
earned him his county court judgeship, on which he prided him- 
self more than any of his other honors.” Though Rugby School 
forms the background of the story and though love of Rugby is 
conspicuous throughout, the book is really a portrayal of the 


INTRODUCTION ii 

schoolboy in whatever school he may be found. The universal- 
ity of the story is attested by the fact that the rivals of Rugby 
admit the greatness of the book and are not offended by its 
local color. 

Though not a great creative thinker, Thomas Hughes had 
the good sense and the capacity to recognize the qualities of 
leadership in others and to profit by their teachings. Arnold, 
Carlyle, Thackeray, Lowell, Kingsley, and Maurice had a large 
part in forming his opinions and in guiding his conduct. He was 
an aggressive, militant moralist and social reformer. As such, he 
fought a good fight and kept the faith. His books do not belong 
among the greatest in English literature, but they are read and 
will long continue to be read by those who admire vigor and 
genuineness. 

He died at Brighton, England, March 22, 1896. 

2. The Great English Public Schools 

The term “public schools” has an entirely different meaning 
in England from what the same term has in America. In Eng- 
land the “public schools” are the endowed institutions which 
draw their students from the public at large instead of from a 
merely local constituency. They admit boys upon examination, 
they charge tuition, and they prepare for entrance into the 
universities. 

The Clarendon Commission of 1861 recognized nine Great 
Public Schools. The dates in parentheses are the years of the 
founding of these nine schools as follows: — Winchester (1387), 
Eton (1440), Shrewsbury (1551), Westminster (1560), Rugby 
(1567), Harrow (1571), Charterhouse (1611), St. Paul’s (1509), 
Merchant Taylors’ (1561). Under the terms of the Public 
Schools Act of 1868, only the first seven of these are now counted 
as the Great Public Schools. St. Paul’s and Merchant Taylors’ 
were omitted from the list because they had become mainly day 
schools. 

There are now many other public schools in England. The 
number tends constantly to increase as the various local gram- 
mar schools attain distinction and draw their patronage from 
wider areas. The seven institutions named above, however, are 
still considered the “great public schools.” 


12 


INTRODUCTION 


3. Chronological List of the Chief Writings of Thomas 
Hughes 

1857 . Tom Brownes School Days. 

1859 . The Scouring of the White Horse. 

1861 . Tom Brown at Oxford. 

1868 . Religio Laid. 

1868 . Life of Alfred the Great. 

1873 . Memoir of a Brother. 

1878 . The Old Church. 

1879 . The Manliness of Christ. 

1881 . Rughy, Tennessee. 

1882 . Life of Daniel Macmillan. 

1884 . Gone to Texas. 

1887 . Life of Bishop Fraser. 

1889 . Life of Livingstone. 

1895 . Vacation Rambles. 



Rugby 


PART I 


CHAPTER I 

THE BROWN FAMILY 

“I’m the Poet of White Horse Vale, Sir, 

With liberal notions under my cap.” 

Ballad. 

The Browns have become illustrious by the pen of Thackeray 
and the pencil of Doyle within the memory of the young gentle- 
men who are now ^ matriculating at the universities. Notwith- 
standing the well-merited but late fame which has now fallen 
upon them, anyone at all acquainted with the family must feel 
that much has yet to be written and said before the British na- 
tion will be properly sensible of how much of its greatness it 
owes to the Browns.” For centuries, in their quiet, dogged, 
homespun way, they have been subduing the earth in most 
English counties, and leaving their mark in American forests 
and Australian uplands. Wherever the fleets and armies of 
England have won renown, there stalwart sons of the Browns 
have done yeomen’s work. With the yew bow and cloth-yard 
shaft at Cressy and Agincourt, with the brown bill and pike 
under the brave Lord Willoughby, with culverin and demicul- 
verin against Spaniards and Dutchmen, with hand-grenade and 
saber, and musket and bayonet, under Rodney and St. Vincent, 
Wolfe and Moore, Nelson and Wellington, they have carried 
their lives in their hands; getting hard knocks and hard work 
in plenty, which was on the whole what they looked for, and the 
best thing for them — and little praise or pudding, which indeed 

^ 1857. 

» A superior n in the text indicates a note at the end of the volume. 

13 


14 THE BROWN FAMILY 

they, and most of us, are better without. Talbots and Stanleys, 
St. Maurs and such-like folk, have led armies and made laws 
time out of mind; but those noble families would be somewhat 
astounded — if the accounts ever came to be fairly taken — to 
find how small their work for England has been by the side of 
that of the Browns. 

These latter, indeed, have, until the present generation, rarely 
been sung by poet or chronicled by sage. They have wanted 
their “sacer vates,” ^ having been too solid to rise to the top by 
themselves, and not having been largely gifted with the talent of 
catching hold of, and holding on tight to, whatever good things 
happened to be going, — the foundation of the fortunes of so 
many noble families. But the world goes on its way, and the 
wheel ^ turns, and the wrongs of the Browns, like other wrongs, 
seem in a fair way to get righted. And this present writer, hav- 
ing for many years of his life been a devout Brown- worshiper, 
and moreover having the honor of being nearly connected with 
an eminently respectable branch of the great Brown family, is 
anxious, so far as in him lies, to help the wheel over, and throw 
his stone on to the pile. 

However, gentle reader, or simple reader, whichever you may 
be, lest you should be led to waste your precious time upon these 
pages, I make so bold as at once to tell you the sort of folk you ’ll 
have to meet and put up with, if you and I are to jog on com- 
fortably together. You shall hear at once what sort of folk the 
Browns are, at least my branch of them; and then if you don’t 
like the sort, why, cut the concern at once, and let you and me 
cry quits before either of us can grumble at the other. 

In the first place, the Browns are a fighting family. One may 
question their wisdom, or wit, or beauty, but about their fight 
there can be no question. Wherever hard knocks of any kind, 
visible or invisible, are going, there the Brown who is nearest 
must shove in his carcass. And these carcasses, for the most 
part, answer very well to the characteristic propensity; they are a 
square-headed and snake-necked generation, broad in the shoul- 

1 “Holy prophet” or “inspired interpreter.” 2 xhe wheel of Fortune. 


THE BROWN CHARACTER 


IS 

der, deep in the chest, and thin in the flank, carrying no lumber. 
Then for clanship, they are as bad as Highlanders; it is amaz- 
ing the belief they have in one another. With them there is 
nothing like the Browns, to the third and fourth generation. 
“Blood is thicker than water,” is one of their pet sayings. 
They can’t be happy unless they are always meeting one an- 
other. Never were such people for family gatherings, which, 
were you a stranger, or sensitive, you might think had better not 
have been gathered together. For during the whole time of 
their being together they luxuriate in telling one another their 
minds on whatever subject turns up; and their minds are won- 
derfully antagonistic, and all their opinions are downright be- 
liefs.” Till you’ve been among them some time and under- 
stand them, you can’t think but that they are quarreling. Not 
a bit of it; they love and respect one another ten times the more 
after a good set family arguing bout, and go back, one to his 
curacy, another to his chambers, and another to his regiment, 
freshened for work, and more than ever convinced that the 
Browns are the height of company. 

This family training, too, combined with their turn for com- 
bativeness, makes them eminently quixotic. They can’t let 
anything alone which they think going wrong. They must 
speak their mind about it, annoying all easy-going folk; and 
spend their time and money in having a tinker at it, however 
hopeless the job. It is an impossibility to a Brown to leave the 
most disreputable lame dog on the other side of a stile. Most 
other folk get tired of such work. The old Browns, with red 
faces, white whiskers, and bald heads, go on believing and fight- 
ing to green old age. They have always a crotchet going, till 
the old man ^ with the scythe reaps and garners them away for 
troublesome old boys as they are. 

And the most provoking thing is, that no failures knock them 
up, or make them hold their hands, or think you, or me, or other 
sane people in the right. Failures slide off them like July rain off 
a duck’s back feathers. Jem and his whole family turn out bad, 
^ Father Time. 


TOM BROWN’S BIRTHPLACE 


i6 

and cheat them one week, and the next they are doing the same 
thing for Jack; and when he goes to the treadmill, and his wife 
and children to the workhouse, they will be on the lookout for 
Bill to take his place. 

However, it is time for us to get from the general to the par- 
ticular; so, leaving the great army of Browns, who are scattered 
over the whole empire on which the sun never sets, and whose 
general diffusion I take to be the chief cause of that empire’s 
stability, let us at once fix our attention upon the small nest of 
Browns in which our hero was hatched, and which dwelt in that 
portion of the royal county of Berks ^ which is called the Vale 
of White Horse.” 

Most of you have probably traveled down the Great West- 
ern Railway as far as Swindon. Those of you who did so with 
their eyes open, have been aware, soon after leaving the Didcot 
station, of a fine range of chalk hills running parallel with the 
railway on the left-hand side as you go down, and distant some 
two or three miles, more or less, from the line. The highest point 
in the range is the White Horse Hill, which you come in front of 
just before you stop at the Shrivenham station. If you love Eng- 
lish scenery and have a few hours to spare, you can’t do better, 
the next time you pass, than stop at the Farringdon-road or 
Shrivenham station, and make your way to that highest point. 
And those who care for the vague old stories that haunt country- 
sides all about England will not, if they are wise, be content 
with only a few hours’ stay; for, glorious as the view is, the 
neighborhood is yet more interesting for its relics of bygone 
times. I only know two English neighborhoods thoroughly, 
and in each, within a circle of five miles, there is enough of in- 
terest and beauty to last any reasonable man his life. I be- 
lieve this to be the case almost throughout the country, but each 
has a special attraction, and none can be richer than the one I 
am speaking of and going to introduce you to very particularly; 
for on this subject I must be prosy; so those that don’t care for 
England in detail may skip the chapter. 

1 A popular abbreviation of Berkshire. 


THE OLD BOY MOURNETH 17 

O young England! young England! You who are born into 
these racing, railroad times, when there’s a great exhibition, 
or some monster sight, every year; and you can get over a 
couple of thousand miles of ground for tlu*ee pound ten, in a 
five weeks’ holiday; why don’t you know more of your own 
birthplaces? You’re all in the ends of the earth, it seems to 
me, as soon as you get your necks out of the educational collar, 
for midsummer holidays, long vacations, or what not — agoing 
round Ireland, with a return ticket, in a fortnight; dropping 
your copies of Tennyson on the tops of Swiss mountains; or pull- 
ing down the Danube in Oxford racing boats. And when you 
get home for a quiet fortnight, you turn the steam off, and lie 
on your backs in the paternal garden, surrounded by the last 
batch of books from Mudie’s library and half bored to death. 
Well, well! I know it has its good side. You all patter French 
more or less, and perhaps German; you have seen men and cities, 
no doubt, and have your opinions, such as they are, about 
schools of painting, high art, and all that; have seen the pic- 
tures at Dresden and the Louvre, and know the taste of sauer- 
kraut. All I say is, you don’t know your own lanes and woods 
and fields. Though you may be chock-full of science, not one 
in twenty of you knows where to find the wood sorrel, or bee 
orchis, which grow in the next wood, or on the down three miles 
off, or what the bog bean and wood sage are good for. And 
as for the country legends, the stories of the old gable-ended 
farmhouses, the place where the last skirmish was fought in 
the civil wars, where the parish butts stood, where the last high- 
wayman turned to bay, where the last ghost was laid “ by the 
parson, they’re gone out of date altogether. 

Now, in my time, when we got home by the old coach, which 
put us down at the crossroads with our boxes, the first day of 
the holidays, and had been driven off by the family coachman, 
singing “ Dulce domum ” ^ at the top of our voices, there we were, 
fixtures, till black Monday ^ came round. We had to cut out our 
own amusements within a walk or a ride of home. And so we 
* “Sweet home.” ^ The time for return to school. 


OVER YOUNG ENGLAND 


t8 

got to know all the country folk, and their ways and songs and 
stories, by heart; and went over the fields, and woods, and hills, 
again and again, till we made friends of them all. We were 
Berkshire, or Gloucestershire, or Yorkshire boys, and you’re 
young cosmopolites, belonging to all counties and no countries. 
No doubt, it’s all right; I dare say it is. This is the day of 
large views and glorious humanity, and all that; but I wish 
backsword play hadn’t gone out in the Vale of White Horse, 
and that that confounded Great Western ^ hadn’t carried away 
Alfred’s Hill to make an embankment. 

But to return to the said Vale of White Horse, the country in 
which the first scenes of this true and interesting story are laid. 
As I said, the Great Western now runs right through it; and it is a 
land of large rich pastures, bounded by ox-fences, and covered 
with fine hedgerow timber, with here and there a nice little gorse 
or spinney, where abide th poor Charley,^ having no other cover 
to which to betake himself for miles and miles, when pushed out 
some fine November morning by the Old Berkshire.^ Those 
who have been there, and well mounted, only know how he and 
the stanch little pack who dash after him — heads high and sterns 
low, with a breast-high scent — can consume the ground at such 
times. There being little plowland and few woods, the Vale is 
only an average sporting country, except for hunting. The vil- 
lages are straggling, queer, old-fashioned places, the houses being 
dropped down, without the least regularity, in nooks and out-of- 
the-way corners, by the sides of shadowy lanes and footpaths, 
each with its patch of garden. They are built chiefly of good 
gray stone, and thatched; though I see that within the last 
year or two the red-brick cottages are multiplying, for the 
Vale is beginning to manufacture largely both brick and tiles. 
There are lots of waste ground by the side of the roads in 
every village, amounting often to village greens, where feed 
the pigs and ganders of the people; and these roads are old-fash- 
ioned, homely roads, very dirty and badly made, and hardly en- 

* Great Western Railway. * A popular designation of the fox. 

* The Berkshire Hunting Club. 


VALES IN GENERAL 


19 

durable in winter, but still pleasant jog-trot roads, running 
through the great pasture lands, dotted here and there with 
little clumps of thorns, where the sleek kine are feeding, with no 
fence on either side of them, and a gate at the end of each field, 
which makes you get out of your gig (if you keep one), and gives 
you a chance of looking about you every quarter of a mile. 

One of the moralists whom we sat under in my youth — was it 
the great Richard Swiveller,” or Mr. Stiggins?” — says, “ We are 
born in a vale, and must take the consequences of being found in 
such a situation.” These consequences, I for one am ready to 
encounter. I pity people who weren ’t born in a vale. I don T 
mean a flat country, but a vale; that is, a flat country bounded 
by hills. The having your hill always in view if you choose to 
turn towards him, that’s the essence of a vale. There he is 
forever in the distance, your friend and companion; you never 
lose him as you do in hilly districts. 

And then what a hill is the White Horse Hill ! There it stands 
right up above all the rest, nine hundred feet above the sea, and 
the boldest, bravest shape for a chalk hill that you ever saw. 
Let us go up to the top of him, and see what is to be found there. 
Ay, you may well wonder, and think it odd you never heard of 
this before; but, wonder or not, as you please, there are hundreds 
of such things lying about England, which wiser folk than you 
know nothing of, and care nothing for. Yes, it’s a magnificent 
Roman camp, and no mistake, with gates, and ditch, and 
mounds, all as complete as it was twenty years after the strong 
old rogues left it. Here, right up on the highest point, from 
which they say you can see eleven counties, they trenched 
round all the table-land, some twelve or fourteen acres, as was 
their custom, for they couldn’t bear anybody to overlook them, 
and made their eyrie.” The ground falls away rapidly on all 
sides. Was there ever such turf in the whole world? You 
sink up to your ankles at every step, and yet the spring of it is 
delicious. There is always a breeze in the “camp,” as it is 
called, and here it lies, just as the Romans left it, except that 
cairn on the east side, left by her Majesty’s corps of sappers and 


20 


WHITE HORSE HILL 


miners ” the other day, when they and the engineer officer had 
finished their sojourn there, and their surveys for the ordnance 
map “ of Berkshire. It is altogether a place that you won’t for- 
get — a place to open a man’s soul and make him prophesy, as he 
looks down on that great Vale spread out as the garden of the 
Lord before him, and wave on wave of the mysterious downs 
behind; and to the right and left the chalk hills running away 
into the distance, along which he can trace for miles the old 
Roman road, “ the Ridgeway ” the Rudge ” as the country 
folk call it), keeping straight along the highest back of the 
hills; — such a place as Balak brought Balaam ” to, and told 
him to prophesy against the people in the valley beneath. 
And he could not, neither shall you, for they are a people of 
the Lord who abide there. 

And now we leave the camp, and descend towards the west, 
and are on the Ashdown. We are treading on heroes. It is 
sacred ground for Englishmen, more sacred than all but one or 
two fields where their bones lie whitening. For this is the actual 
place where our Alfred ” won his great battle, the battle of Ash- 
down ” iEscendum ” in the chroniclers) which broke the Dan- 
ish power, and made England a Christian land. The Danes 
held the camp and the slope where we are standing — the whole 
crown of the hill, in fact. “ The heathen had beforehand seized 
the higher ground,” as old Asser says, having wasted everything 
behind them from London, and being just ready to burst down 
on the fair Vale, Alfred’s own birthplace and heritage. And 
up the heights came the Saxons, as they did at the Alma.” 
“ The Christians led up their line from the lower ground. There 
stood also on that same spot a single thorn tree, marvelous 
stumpy (which we ourselves with our very own eyes have 
seen).” Bless the old chronicler! does he think nobody ever 
saw the “ single thorn tree ” but himself? Why, there it stands 
to this very day, just on the slope, and I saw it not three weeks 
since; an old single thorn tree, “marvelous stumpy.” At least 
if it isn’t the same tree, it ought to have been, for it’s just in 
the place where the battle must have been won or lost — “ around 


BATTLE OF ASHDOWN 2i 

which, as I was saying, the two lines of foemen came together 
in battle with a huge shout. And in this place, one of the two 
Kings of the heathen and five of his earls fell down and died, 
and many thousands of the heathen side in the same place.” ^ 
After which crowning mercy, the pious King, that there might 
never be wanting a sign and a memorial to the countryside, 
carved out on the northern side of the chalk hill, under the camp, 
where it is almost precipitous, the great Saxon white horse, 
which he who will may see from the railway, and which gives its 
name to the Vale, over which it has looked these thousand years 
and more. 

Right down below the White Horse is a curious deep and broad 
gully called “ the Manger,” into one side of which the hills fall 
with a series of the most lovely sweeping curves, known as “ the 
Giant’s Stairs ”; they are not a bit like stairs, but I never saw 
anything like them anywhere else, with their short green turf, 
and tender bluebells, and gossamer and thistledown gleaming in 
the sun, and the sheep paths running along their sides like ruled 
lines. 

The other side of the Manger is formed by the Dragon ’s Hill, 
a curious little round self-confident fellow, thrown forward from 
the range, and utterly unlike everything round him. On this 
hill some deliverer of mankind, St. George, the country folk used 
to tell me, killed a dragon. Whether it were St. George, I can- 
not say; but surely a dragon was killed there, for you may see the 
marks yet where his blood ran down, and more by token the 
place where it ran down is the easiest way up the hillside. 

Passing along the Ridgeway to the west for about a mile, 
we come to a little clump of young beech and firs, with a growth 

1 “Pagani editiorem locum praeoccupaverant. Christiani ab inferiori loco 
aciem dirigebant. Erat quoque in eodem loco unica spinosa arbor, brevis 
admodum (quam nos ipsi nostris proprii^ oculis vidimus). Circa quam ergo 
hostiles inter se acies cum ingenti clamore hostiliter conveniunt. Quo in loco 
alter de duobus Paganorum regibus et quinque comites occisi occubuerunt, 
et multa millia Paganas partis in eodem loco.” Annales Rerum Gestarum 
Mlfredi Magni, Auctore Asserio. Recensuit Franciscus Wise. Oxford, 1722, 
P- 23. 


22 WAY LAND SMITH’S CAVE 

of thorn and privet underwood. Here you may find nests of 
the strong down partridge and peewit, but take care that the 
keeper isn’t down upon you; and in the middle of it is an old 
cromlech,^ a huge flat stone raised on seven or eight others, and 
led up to by a path, with large single stones set up on each side. 
This is Wayland Smith’s cave, a place of classic fame now; but 
as Sir Walter has touched it, I may as well let it alone, and refer 
you to Kenilworth for the legend. 

The thick deep wood which you see in the hollow, about a 
mile off, surrounds Ashdown Park, built by Inigo Jones.” Four 
broad alleys are cut through the wood from circumference to 
center, and each leads to one face of the house. The mystery of 
the downs hangs about house and wood, as they stand there 
alone, so unlike all around, with the green slopes, studded with 
great stones just about this part, stretching away on all sides. 
It was a wise Lord Craven, I think, who pitched his tent there. 

Passing along the Ridgeway to the east, we soon come to cul- 
tivated land. The downs, strictly so called, are no more; Lin- 
colnshire farmers have been imported, and the long fresh slopes 
are sheepwalks no more, but grow famous turnips and barley. 
One of these improvers lives over there at the “ Seven Barrows ” 
farm, another mystery of the great downs. There are the bar- 
rows ^ still, solemn and silent, like ships in the calm sea, the sep- 
ulchers of some sons of men. But of whom? It is three miles 
from the White Horse, too far for the slain of Ashdown to be 
buried there — who shall say what heroes are waiting there? But 
we must get down into the Vale again, and so away by the Great 
Western Railway to town, for time and the printer’s devil press, 
and it is a terrible long and slippery descent, and a shocking bad 
road. At the bottom, however, there is a pleasant public,^ 
whereat we must really take a modest quencher, for the down air 
is provocative of thirst. So we pull up under an old oak which 
stands before the door. 

“ What is the name of your hill, landlord?” 

Blawing Stwun Hill, sir, to be sure.” 

^ Tomb. 2 Large, sepulchral mounds. * Inn. 


23 


THE BLOWING STONE 

[Reader. “ Sturm? ” 

Author. Stone, stupid: the Blowing Stone”] 

“ And of your house? I can’t make out the sign.” 

“ Blawing Stwun, sir,” says the landlord, pouring out his old 
ale from a Toby Philpot jug,^ with a melodious crash, into the 
long-necked glass. 

“What queer names!” say we, sighing at the end of our 
draft, and holding out the glass to be replenished. 

“ Be’ant queer at all, as I can see, sir,” says mine host, hand- 
ing back our glass, “ seeing as this here is the Blawing Stwun his 
self,” putting his hand on a square lump of stone, some three 
feet and a half high, perforated with two or three queer holes, 
like petrified antediluvian rat holes, which lies there close under 
the oak, under our very nose. We are more than ever puzzled, 
and drink our second glass of ale, wondering what will come next. 
“ Like to hear un, sir? ” says mine host, setting down Toby Phil- 
pot on the tray, and resting both hands on the “ Stwun.” We 
are ready for anything; and he, without waiting for a reply, ap- 
plies his mouth to one of the rat holes. Something must come 
of it, if he doesn’t burst. Good heavens! I hope he has no 
apoplectic tendencies. Yes, here it comes, sure enough, a grue- 
some soimd between a moan and a roar, and spreads itself away 
over the valley, and up the hillside, and into the woods at the 
back of the house, a ghost-like awful voice. “ Um do say, sir,” 
says mine host, rising purple-faced, while the moan is still com- 
ing out of the Stwun, “ as they used in old times to warn the 
countryside, by blawing the Stwun when the enemy was a-com- 
in ’ — and as how folks could make un heered then for seven mile 
round; leastways, so I’ve heered lawyer Smith say, and he knows 
a smart sight about them old times.” We can hardly swallow 
lawyer Smith’s seven miles, but could the blowing of the stone 
have been a summons, a sort of sending the fiery cross round 
the neighborhood in the old times? What old times? Who 
knows? We pay for our beer, and are thankful. 

1 A pitcher or mug, shaped somewhat like a fat old gentleman whose cocked 
hat forms the brim. 


24 FARRINGDON AND PUSEY 

“ And what’s the name of the village just below, landlord?” 

Kingstone Lisle, sir.” 

“ Fine plantations you’ve got here? ” 

“ Yes, sir, the Squire’s ’mazin’ fond of trees and such like.” 

“No wonder. He’s got some real beauties to be fond of. 
Good day, landlord.” 

“Good day, sir, and a pleasant ride to ’e.” 

And now, my boys, you whom I want to get for readers, have 
you had enough? Will you give in at once, and say you’re 
convinced, and let me begin my story, or will you have more of 
it? Remember, I’ve only been over a little bit of the hillside 
yet, what you could ride round easily on your ponies in an hour. 
I ’m only just come down into the Vale, by Blowing Stone Hill, 
and if I once begin about the Vale, what’s to stop me? You’ll 
have to hear all about Wantage, the birthplace of Alfred, and 
Farringdon which held out so long for Charles the First (the 
Vale was near Oxford, and dreadfully malignant; full of Throg- 
mortons, Puseys, and Pyes, and such like, and their brawny re- 
tainers). Did you ever read Thomas Ingoldsby’s Legend of 
Hamilton Tighe? If you haven’t, you ought to have. Well, 
Farringdon is where he lived, before he went to sea; his real name 
was Hamden Pye, and the Pyes were the great folk at Farring- 
don. Then there’s Pusey. You’ve heard of the Pusey horn, 
which King Canute gave to the Puseys of that day, and which 
the gallant old Squire, lately gone to his rest (whom Berkshire 
freeholders turned out of last Parliament, to their eternal dis- 
grace, for voting according to his conscience), used to bring 
out on high days, holidays, and bonfire nights. And the splen- 
did old Cross church at Uffington, the Uffingas town; — how 
the whole countryside teems with Saxon names and memories! 
And the old moated grange at Compton, nestled close under 
the hillside, where twenty Marianas ” may have lived, with its 
bright water lilies in the moat, and its yew walk, “ the Cloister 
walk,” and its peerless terraced gardens. There they all are, 
and twenty things besides, for those who care about them, and 
have eyes. And these are the sort of things you may find, 


TOM BROWNES HOME 25 

I believe, every one of you, in any common English country 
neighborhood. 

Will you look for them under your own noses, or will you not? 
Well, well; I’ve done what I can to make you, and if you will go 
gadding over half Europe now every holiday, I can ’t help it. I 
was bom and bred a west countryman, thank God! a Wessex 
man, a citizen of the noblest Saxon kingdom of Wessex, a reg- 
ular Angular Saxon,” the very soul of me “ adscriptus glebae.” ^ 
There’s nothing like the old countryside for me, and no music 
like the twang of the real old Saxon tongue, as one gets it fresh 
from the veritable chaw ^ in the White Horse Vale: and I say 
with Gaarge Ridler,” the old west-country yeoman, — 

“Throo aall the waarld owld Gaarge would bwoast 
Commend me to merry owld England mwoast: 

While vools gwoes prating vur and nigh, 

We stwops at whum, my dog and I.” 

Here at any rate lived and stopped at home Squire Brown, 
J. P.,^ for the county of Berks, in the village near the foot of the 
White Horse range. And here he dealt out justice and mercy in 
a rough way, and begat sons and daughters, and hunted the 
fox, and grumbled at the badness of the roads and the times. 
And his wife dealt out stockings, and calico shirts, and smock 
frocks, and comforting drinks to the old folks with the “ rheuma- 
tiz,” and good counsel to all; and kept the coal and clothes clubs 
going, for Yuletide, when the bands of mummers came round, 
dressed out in ribbons and colored paper caps, and stamped 
round the Squire’s kitchen, repeating in true sing-song vernac- 
ular the legend of St. George and his fight, and the ten-pound 
doctor, who plays his part at healing the Saint — a relic, I believe, 
of the old middle-age mysteries. It was the first dramatic 
representation which greeted the eyes of little Tom, who was 
brought down into the kitchen by his nurse to witness it, at the 
mature age of three years. Tom was the eldest child of his par- 
ents, and from his earliest babyhood exhibited the family char- 
acteristics in great strength. He was a hearty strong boy from 
1 “Bound to the soil.” ^ A peasant. ^ justice of Peace. 


26 SQUIRE BROWN AND HIS HOUSEHOLD 

the first, given to fighting with and escaping from his nurse, and 
fraternizing with all the village boys, with whom he made expe- 
ditions all round the neighborhood. And here in the quiet old- 
fashioned country village, under the shadow of the everlasting 
hills, Tom Brown was reared, and never left it till he went first 
to school when nearly eight years of age — for in those days 
change of air twice a year was not thought absolutely necessary 
for the health of all her Majesty’s lieges. 

I have been credibly informed, and am inclined to believe, 
that the various Boards of Directors of Railway Companies, 
those gigantic jobbers and bribers, while quarreling about every- 
thing else, agreed together some ten years back to buy up the 
learned profession of medicine, body and soul. To this end 
they set apart several millions of money, which they continually 
distribute judiciously amongst the doctors, stipulating only 
this one thing, that they shall prescribe change of air to every 
patient who can pay, or borrow money to pay, a railway fare, 
and see their prescription carried out. If it be not for this, why 
is it that none of us can well be at home for a year together? It 
wasn’t so twenty years ago — not a bit of it. The Browns 
didn’t go out of the county once in five years. A visit to Read- 
ing or Abingdon twice a year, at Assizes or Quarter Sessions,^ 
which the Squire made on his horse with a pair of saddlebags 
containing his wardrobe — a stay of a day or two at some country 
neighbor’s — or an expedition to a county ball, or the yeomanry 
review ^ — made up the sum of the Brown locomotion in most 
years. A stray Brown from some distant county dropped in 
every now and then; or from Oxford, on grave nag, an old don,^ 
contemporary of the Squire; and were looked upon by the 
Brown household and the villagers with the same sort of feel- 
ing with which we now regard a man who has crossed the Rocky 
Mountains, or launched a boat on the Great Lake in Central 
Africa. The White Horse Vale, remember, was traversed by no 
great road; nothing but country parish roads, and these very 
bad. Only one coach ran there, and this one only from Wan- 

^ County courts. ^ Inspection of the local militia. ^ College professor. 


THE OLD BOY ABUSETH MOVING ON 


27 

tage to London, so that the western part of the Vale was with- 
out regular means of moving on, and certainly didn’t seem to 
want them. There was the canal, by the way, which supplied 
the countryside with coal, and up and down which continually 
went the long barges, with the big black men lounging by the 
side of the horses along the towing-path, and the women in 
bright colored handkerchiefs standing in the sterns steering. 
Standing I say, but you could never see whether they were 
standing or sitting, all but their heads and shoulders being out 
of sight in the cozy little cabins which occupied some eight feet 
of the stern, and which Tom Brown pictured to himself as the 
most desirable of residences. His nurse told him that those 
good-natured looking women were in the constant habit of en- 
ticing children into the barges and taking them up to London 
and selling them, which Tom wouldn’t believe, and which made 
him resolve as soon as possible to accept the oft-proffered invita- 
tion of these sirens to young Master ” to come in and have a 
ride. But as yet the nurse was too much for Tom. 

Yet why should I after all abuse the gadabout propensities of 
my countr3mien? We are a vagabond nation now, that’s cer- 
tain, for better for worse. I am a vagabond; I have been away 
from home no less than five distinct times in the last year. 
The Queen sets us the example — we are moving on from top to 
bottom. Little dirty Jack, who abides in Clement’s Inn gate- 
way, and. blacks my boots for a penny, takes his month’s hop- 
picking ” every year as a matter of course. Why shouldn’t he? 
I’m delighted at it. I love vagabonds, only I prefer poor to 
rich ones;-— couriers and ladies’ maids, imperials ^ and traveling 
carriages, are an abomination unto me — I cannot away with 
them. But for dirty Jack, and every good fellow who, in the 
words of the capital French song, moves about, — 

“Comme le limafon, 

Portant tout son bagage, 

Ses meubles, sa maison,” ^ 

1 Give several meanings of imperial. 

2 “Like the snail, carrying all his baggage, his furniture, his house. * 


28 


THE OLD BOY APPROVETH MOVING ON 


on his own back, why, good luck to them, and many a merry 
roadside adventure, and steaming supper in the chimney corners 
of roadside inns, Swiss chalets, Hottentot kraals, or wherever 
else they like to go. So having succeeded in contradicting my- 
self in my first chapter (which gives me great hopes that you 
will all go on, and think me a good fellow notwithstanding my 
crotchets), I shall here shut up for the present, and consider my 
ways; having resolved to “ sar’ it out,” ^ as we say in the Vale, 
“ holus-bolus ” ^ just as it comes, and then you’ll probably get 
the truth out of me. 


CHAPTER H 

THE VEAST^ 

“And the King commandeth and forbiddeth, that from henceforth neither 
fairs nor markets be kept in Churchyards, for the honor of the Church.” — 
Statutes: 13 Edw. I. Stat. ii. cap. vi. 

As that venerable and learned poet ” (whose voluminous 
works we all think it the correct thing to admire and talk about, 
but don’t read often) most truly says, “ The child is father to the 
man a fortiori,^ therefore, he must be father to the boy. So, 
as we are going at any rate to see Tom Brown through his boy- 
hood, supposing we never get any further, (which, if you show 
a proper sense of the value of this history, there is no knowing 
but what we may), let us have a look at the life and environ- 
ments of the child, in the quiet country village to which we were 
introduced in the last chapter. 

Tom, as has been already said, was a robust and combative 
urchin, and at the age of four began to struggle against the yoke 
and authority of his nurse. That functionary was a good- 
hearted, tearful, scatter-brained girl, lately taken by Tom’s 
mother. Madam Brown, as she was called, from the village school 
to be trained as nursery maid. Madam Brown was a rare trainer 
of servants, and spent herself freely in the profession; for profes- 

1 “Deal it out.” mock-Latin term, meaning “all at once.” 

3 The colloquial form for “feast.” ^ “With stronger reason.” 


TOM BROWNES NURSE 


29 

sion it was, and gave her more trouble by half than many people 
take to earn a good income. Her servants were known and sought 
after for miles round. Almost all the girls who attained a certain 
place in the village school were taken by her, one or two at a time, 
as housemaids, laundry maids, nursery maids, or kitchen maids, 
and after a year or two ’s drilling were started in life amongst the 
neighboring families, with good principles and wardrobes. One 
of the results of this system was the perpetual despair of Mrs. 
Brown’s cook and own maid, who no sooner had a notable girl 
made to their hands than Missus was sure to find a good place 
for her and send her off, taking in fresh importations from the 
school. Another was, that the house was always full of young 
girls, with clean shining faces, who broke plates and scorched 
linen, but made an atmosphere of cheerful homely life about 
the place, good for every one who came within its influence. 
Mrs. Brown loved young people, and in fact human creatures in 
general, above plates and linen. They were more like a lot of 
elder children than servants, and felt to her more as a mother or 
aunt than as a mistress. 

Tom ’s nurse was one who took in her instruction very slowly 
— she seemed to have two left hands and no head; and so Mrs. 
Brown kept her on longer than usual, that she might expend her 
awkwardness and forgetfulness upon those who would not judge 
and punish her too strictly for them. 

Charity Lamb was her name. It had been the immemorial 
habit of the village to christen children either by Bible names, or 
by those of the cardinal and other virtues; so that one was for- 
ever hearing in the village street, or on the green, shrill sounds 
of “Prudence! Prudence! thee cum’ out o’ the gutter”; or, 
“ Mercy! d’rat the girl, what bist thee a-doin’ wi’ little Faith? ” 
and there were Ruths, Rachels, Keziahs, in every corner. The 
same with the boys; they were Benjamins, Jacobs, Noahs, 
Enochs. I suppose the custom has come down from Puritan 
times — there it is at any rate, very strong still in the Vale. 

Well, from early morn till dewy eve, when she had it out of 
him in the cold tub before putting him to bed. Charity and Tom 


TOM BROWN’S CASTLE OF REFUGE 


30 

were pitted against one another. Physical power was as yet on 
the side of Charity, but she hadn’t a chance with him wherever 
headwork was wanted. This war of independence began every 
morning before breakfast, when Charity escorted her charge to a 
neighboring farmhouse which supplied the Browns, and where, 
by his mother’s wish. Master Tom went to drink whey, before 
breakfast. Tom had no sort of objection to whey, but he had a 
decided liking for curds, which were forbidden as unwholesome, 
and there was seldom a morning that he did not manage to se- 
cure a handful of hard curds, in defiance of Charity and of the 
farmer’s wife. The latter good soul was a gaunt angular wom- 
an, who, with an old black bonnet on the top of her head, the 
strings dangling about her shoulders, and her gown tucked 
through her pocket-Tioles, went clattering about the dairy, 
cheese-room, and yard, in high pattens.^ Charity was some 
sort of niece of the old lady’s, and was consequently free of the 
farmhouse and garden, into which she could not resist going for 
the purposes of gossip and flirtation with the heir apparent, 
who was a dawdling fellow, never out at work as he ought to 
have been. The moment Charity had found her cousin, or any 
other occupation, Tom would slip away; and in a minute shrill 
cries would be heard from the dairy, “ Charity, Charity, thee 
lazy huzzy, where bist? ” and Tom would break cover, hands and 
mouth full of curds, and take refuge on the shaky surface of the 
great muck reservoir in the middle of the yard, disturbing the 
repose of the great pigs. Here he was in safety, as no grown 
person could follow without getting over their knees; and the 
luckless Charity, while her aunt scolded her from the dairy door, 
for being “ alius hankering about arter our Willum, instead of 
minding Master Tom,” would descend from threats to coaxing, 
to lure Tom out of the muck, which was rising over his shoes and 
would soon tell a tale on his stockings, for which she would be 
sure to catch it from Missus ’s maid. 

Tom had two abetters in the shape of a couple of old boys, 
Noah and Benjamin by name, who defended him from Charity, 
^ Shoes with wooden soles. 


TOM BROWNES ABETTERS 31 

and expended much time upon his education. They were both 
of them retired servants of former generations of the Browns. 
Noah Crooke was a keen dry old man of almost ninety, but still 
able to totter about. He talked to Tom quite as if he were one 
of his own family, and indeed had long completely identified the 
Browns with himself. In some remote age he had been the at- 
tendant of a Miss Brown, and had conveyed her about the 
country on a pillion. He had a little round picture of the iden- 
tical gray horse, caparisoned with the identical pillion, before 
which he used to do a sort of fetich worship, and abuse turnpike- 
roads and carriages. He wore an old full-bottomed wig, the gift 
of some dandy old Brown whom he had valeted in the middle of 
last century, which habiliment Master Tom looked upon with 
considerable respect, not to say fear; and indeed his whole feel- 
ing towards Noah was strongly tainted with awe; and when the 
old gentleman was gathered to his fathers, Tom’s lamentation 
over him was not unaccompanied by a certain joy at having 
seen the last of the wig: “ Poor old Noah, dead and gone,” said 
he; “ Tom Brown so sorry! Put him in the cofi&n, wig and all.” 

But old Benjy was young Master’s real delight and refuge. 
He was a youth by the side of Noah, scarce seventy years old. 
A cheery, humorous, kind-hearted old man, full of sixty years of 
Vale gossip, and of all sorts of helpful ways for young and old, 
but above all for children. It was he who bent the first pin, with 
which Tom extracted his first stickleback out of “Pebbly 
Brook,” the little stream which ran through the village. The 
first stickleback was a splendid fellow, with fabulous red and 
blue gills. Tom kept him in a small basin till the day of his 
death, and became a fisherman from that day. Within a month 
from the taking of the first stickleback, Benjy had carried off our 
hero to the canal, in defiance of Charity, and between them, 
after a whole afternoon’s popjoying, they had caught three or 
four small coarse fish and a perch, averaging perhaps two and a 
half ounces each, which Tom bore home in rapture to his mother 
as a precious gift, and she received like a true mother with equal 
rapture, instructing the cook, nevertheless, in a private inter- 


TOM BROWN'S ABETTERS 


32 

view, not to prepare the same for the Squire ’s dinner. Charity 
had appealed against, old Benjy in the meantime, representing 
the dangers of the canal banks; but Mrs. Brown, seeing the 
boy’s inaptitude for female guidance, had decided in Benjy ’s 
favor, and from thenceforth the old man was Tom’s dry nurse. 
And as they sat by the canal watching their little green and 
white float, Benjy would instruct him in the doings of deceased 
Browns. How his grandfather, in the early days of the great 
war, when there was much distress and crime in the Vale, and the 
magistrates had been threatened by the mob, had ridden in 
with a big stick in his hand, and held the Petty Sessions ^ by 
himself. How his great-uncle, the rector, had encountered and 
laid the last ghost, who had frightened the old women, male 
and female, of the parish out of their senses, and who turned out 
to be the blacksmith’s apprentice, disguised in drink and a 
white sheet. It was Benjy, too, who saddled Tom’s first pony, 
and instructed him in the mysteries of horsemanship, teaching 
him to throw his weight back and keep his hand low; and who 
stood chuckling outside the door of the girls’ school, when Tom 
rode his little Shetland into the cottage and round the table, 
where the old dame and her pupils were seated at their work. 

Benjy himself was come of a family distinguished in the Vale 
for their prowess in all athletic games. Some half dozen of 
his brothers and kinsmen had gone to the wars, of whom only 
one had survived to come home, with a small pension, and 
three bullets in different parts of his body; he had shared Benjy ’s 
cottage till his death, and had left him his old dragoon’s sword 
and pistol, which hung over the mantelpiece, flanked by a pair 
of heavy singlesticks with which Benjy himself had won re- 
nown long ago as an old gamester, against the picked men of 
Wiltshire and Somersetshire, in many a good bout at the revels 
and pastimes of the countryside. For he had been a famous 
backsword man in his young days, and a good wrestler at el- 
bow and collar. 

Backswording and wrestling were the most serious holiday 
^ A minor court presided over by a justice of the peace. 


OUR VEAST 


33 

pursuits of the Vale — those by which men attained fame — and 
each village had its champion. I suppose that on the whole 
people were less worked then than they are now; at any rate, 
they seemed to have more time and energy for the old pastimes. 
The great times for backswording came round once a year in 
each village, at the feast. The Vale “ veasts ” were not the 
common statute feasts, but much more ancient business. They 
are literally, so far as one can ascertain, feasts of the dedication, 
i. e., they were first established in the churchyard on the day 
on which the village church was opened for public worship, 
which was on the wake or festival of the patron saint, and had 
been held on the same day in every year since that time. 

There was no longer any remembrance of why the “ veast ” 
had been instituted, but nevertheless it had a pleasant and al- 
most sacred character of its own. For it was then that all the 
children of the village, wherever they were scattered, tried to get 
home for a holiday to visit their fathers and mothers and friends, 
bringing with them their wages or some little gift from up the 
country for the old folk. Perhaps for a day or two before, but 
at any rate on “ veast day ” and the day after, in our village, 
you might see strapping healthy young men and women from 
all parts of the country going round from house to house in 
their best clothes, and finishing up with a call on Madam Brown, 
whom they would consult as to putting out their earnings to 
the best advantage, or how to expend the same best for the bene- 
fit of the old folk. Every household, however poor, managed 
to raise a “ feast cake ” and bottle of ginger or raisin wine, which 
stood on the cottage table ready for all comers, and not unlikely 
to make them remember feast time — for feast cake is very 
solid, and full of huge raisins. Moreover, feast time was the 
day of reconciliation for the parish. If Job Higgins and Noah 
Freeman hadn’t spoken for the last six months, their “ old 
women” would be sure to get it patched up by that day. And 
though there was a good deal of drinking and low vice in the 
booths of an evening, it was pretty well confined to those who 
would have been doing the like, “ veast or no veast,” and, on the 


APPROACH OF VEAST DAY 


34 

whole, the effect was humanizing and Christian. In fact, the 
only reason why this is not the case still, is that gentlefolk and 
farmers have taken to other amusements, and have, as usual, 
forgotten the poor. They don’t attend the feasts themselves, 
and call them disreputable, whereupon the steadiest of the poor 
leave them also, and they become what they are called. Class 
amusements, be they for dukes or plowboys, always become 
nuisances and curses to a country. The true charm of cricket 
and hunting is, that they are still more or less sociable and uni- 
versal; there’s a place for every man who will come and take his 
part. 

No one in the village enjoyed the approach of “ veast day ” 
more than Tom, in the year in which he was taken under old 
Benjy ’s tutelage. The feast was held in a large green field at the 
lower end of the village. The road to Farringdon ran along one 
side of it, and the brook by the side of the road; and above 
the brook was another large gentle sloping pasture-land, with a 
footpath running down it from the churchyard; and the old 
church, the originator of all the mirth, towered up with its gray 
walls and lancet windows, overlooking and sanctioning the 
whole, though its own share therein had been forgotten. At 
the point where the footpath crossed the brook and road, and 
entered on the field where the feast was held, was a long low 
roadside inn, and on the opposite side of the field was a large 
white thatched farmhouse, where dwelt an old sporting farmer, 
a great promoter of the revels. 

Past the old church, and down the footpath, pottered the old 
man and the child hand in hand early on the afternoon of the 
day before the feast, and wandered all round the ground, 
which was already being occupied by the ‘‘ cheap Jacks,” with 
their green covered carts and marvelous assortment of wares, 
and the booths of more legitimate small traders with their 
tempting arrays of fairings ^ and eatables! and penny peep shows 
and other shows, containing pink-eyed ladies, and dwarfs, and 
boa constrictors, and wild Indians. But the object of most 
^ Trinkets. 


MORNING OF THE VEAST 35 

interest to Benjy, and of course to his pupil also, was the stage 
of rough planks some four feet high, which was being put up by 
the village carpenter for the backswording and wrestling; and 
after surveying the whole tenderly, old Benjy led his charge 
away to the roadside inn, where he ordered a glass of ale and a 
long pipe for himself, and discussed these unwonted luxuries 
on the bench outside in the soft autumn evening with mine host, 
another old servant of the Browns, and speculated with him on 
the likelihood of a good show of old gamesters to contend for 
the morrow’s prizes, and told tales of the gallant bouts of 
forty years back, to which Tom listened with all his ears and 
eyes. 

But who shall tell the joy of the next morning, when the church 
bells were ringing a merry peal, and old Benjy appeared in the 
servants’ hall, resplendent in a long blue coat and brass but- 
tons, and a pair of old yellow buckskins and top-boots, which he 
had cleaned for and inherited from Tom’s grandfather; a stout 
thorn-stick in his hand, and a nosegay of pinks and lavender in 
his buttonhole, and led away Tom in his best clothes, and two 
new shillings in his breeches pockets? Those two, at any rate, 
look like enjoying the day’s revel. 

They quicken their pace when they get into the churchyard, 
for already they see the field thronged with country folk, the 
men in clean white smocks or velveteen or fustian coats, with 
rough, plush waistcoats of many colors, and the women in the 
beautiful long scarlet cloak, the usual outdoor dress of west- 
country women in those days, and which often descended in 
families from mother to daughter, or in new-fashioned stuff 
shawls, which, if they would but believe it, don’t become them 
half so well. The air resounds with the pipe and tabor, and the 
drums and trumpets of the showmen shouting at the doors of 
their caravans, over which tremendous pictures of the wonders 
to be seen within hang temptingly; while through all rises the 
shrill root- too- too- too ” of Mr. Punch, and the unceasing pan- 
pipe of his satellite. 

“ Lawk a’ massey, Mr. Benjamin,” cries a stout motherly worn- 


GOSSIPING PRELIMINARY 


36 

an in a red cloak, as they enter the field, “ be that you? Well 
I never! you do look purely. And how’s the Squire, and 
Madam, and the family? ” 

Benjy graciously shakes hands with the speaker, who has left 
our village for some years, but has come over for veast day on a 
visit to an old gossip — and gently indicates the heir apparent of 
the Browns. 

“ Bless his little heart! I must gi’ un a kiss. Here, Susannah, 
Susannah! ” cries she, raising herself from the embrace, “ come 
and see Mr. Benjamin and young Master Tom. You minds 
our Sukey, Mr. Benjamin, she be growed a rare shp of a wench 
since you seen her, tho’ her’ll be sixteen come Martinmas.^ I do 
aim to take her to see Madam to get her a place.” 

And Sukey comes bouncing away from a knot of ol^ school- 
fellows, and drops a curtsy to Mr. Benjamin. And elders come 
up from all parts to salute Benjy, and girls who have been 
Madam’s pupils to kiss Master Tom. And they carry him off 
to load him with fairings; and he returns to Benjy, his hat and 
coat covered with ribbons, and his pockets crammed with won- 
derful boxes which open upon ever new boxes and boxes, and 
popguns and trumpets, and apples and gilt gingerbread from 
the stall of Angel Heavens, sole vender thereof, whose booth 
groans with kings and queens, and elephants and prancing 
steeds, all gleaming with gold. There was more gold on Angel’s 
cakes than there is ginger in those of this degenerate age. 
Skilled diggers might yet make a fortune in the churchyard of 
the Vale, by carefully washing the dust of the consumers of 
Angel’s gingerbread. Alas! he is with his namesakes, and his 
receipts have, I fear, died with him. 

And then they inspect the penny peep show, at least Tom 
does, while old Benjy stands outside and gossips, and walks up 
the steps, and enters the mysterious doors of the pink-eyed lady, 
and the Irish Giant, who do not by any means come up to their 
pictures; and the boa will not swallow his rabbit, but there the 
rabbit is waiting to be swallowed — and what can you expect for 
^ The feast of St. Martin, held on the eleventh of November. 


THE JINGLING MATCH 37 

tuppence? ^ We are easily pleased in the Vale. Now there is a 
rush of the crowd, and a tinkling bell is heard, and shouts of 
laughter; and Master Tom mounts on Benjy’s shoulders and 
beholds a jingling match in all its glory. The games are begun, 
and this is the opening of them. It is a quaint game, immensely 
amusing to look at, and as I don’t know whether it is used in your 
counties, I had better describe it. A large roped ring is made, into 
which are introduced a dozen or so of big boys and young men 
who mean to play; these are carefully blinded and turned loose 
into the ring, and then a man is introduced not blindfolded, with 
a bell hung round his neck, and his two hands tied behind him. 
Of course every time he moves the bell must ring, as he has no 
hand to hold it, and so the dozen blindfolded men have to catch 
him. This they cannot always manage if he is a lively fellow, 
but half of them always rush into the arms of the other half, or 
drive their heads together, or tumble over; and then the crowd 
laughs vehemently, and invents nicknames for them on the spur 
of the moment, and they, if they be choleric, tear off the hand- 
kerchiefs which blind them, and not unfrequently pitch into one 
another, each thinking that the other must have run against him 
on purpose. It is great fun to look at a jingling match certainly, 
and Tom shouts and jumps on old Benjy’s shoulders at the sight, 
until the old man feels weary, and shifts him to the strong 
young shoulders of the groom, who has just got down to the fun. 

And now, while they are climbing the pole in another part of 
the field, and muzzling in a flour tub in another, the old farmer 
whose house, as has been said, overlooks the field, and who is 
master of the revels, gets up the steps on to the stage, and an- 
nounces to all whom it may concern that a half sovereign in 
money will be forthcoming for the old gamester who breaks 
most heads to which the Squire and he have added a new hat. 

The amount of the prize is sufficient to stimulate the men of 
the immediate neighborhood, but not enough to bring any very 
high talent from a distance; so, after a glance or two round, a tall 
fellow, who is a down shepherd, chucks his hat on to the stage 
1 The colloquial form of “twopence” (four cents). 


ARMS AND ACCOUTERMENTS 


38 

and climbs up the steps, looking rather sheepish. The crowd 
of course first cheer, and then chaff as usual as he picks up his 
hat and begins handling the sticks to see which will suit him. 

“ Wooy,^ Willum Smith, thee canst plaay wi’ he arra ^ daay,” 
says his companion to the blacksmith’s apprentice, a stout young 
fellow of nineteen or twenty. Willum’s sweetheart is in the 
“ veast ” somewhere, and has strictly enjoined him not to get 
his head broke at backswording, on pain of her highest dis- 
pleasure; but as she is not to be seen (the women pretend not to 
like to see the backsword play, and keep away from the stage), 
and as his hat is decidedly getting old, he chucks it on to the 
stage, and follows himself, hoping that he will only have to 
break other people’s heads, or that after all Rachel won’t really 
mind. 

Then follows the greasy cap lined with fur of a half-gypsy, 
poaching, loafing fellow, who travels the Vale not for much 
good, I fancy: — 

“Full twenty times was Peter feared 
For once that Peter was respected” « 

in fact. And then three or four other hats, including the glossy 
castor ^ of Joe Willis, the self-elected and would-be champion of 
the neighborhood, a well-to-do young butcher of twenty-eight 
or thereabouts, and a great strapping fellow, with his full allow- 
ance of bluster. This is a capital show of gamesters, consider- 
ing the amount of the prize; so while they are picking their sticks 
and drawing their lots, I think I must tell you, as shortly as I 
can, how the noble old game of backsword is played; for it is 
sadly gone out of late, even in the Vale, and may be you have 
never seen it. 

The weapon is a good stout ash stick with a large basket 
handle, heavier and somewhat shorter than a common single- 
stick. The players are called “ old gamesters ” — why, I can’t 
tell you — and their object is simply to break one another’s 
heads: for the moment that blood runs an inch anywhere above 

^ Why. 2 Any. 3 Beaver hat. 


JOE AND THE GYPSY 39 

the eyebrow, the old gamester to whom it belongs is beaten, and 
has to stop. A very slight blow with the sticks will fetch 
blood, so that it is by no means a punishing pastime, if the men 
don’t play on purpose, and savagely, at the body and arms of 
their adversaries. The old gamester going into action only 
takes off his hat and coat, and arms himself with a stick: he then 
loops the fingers of his left hand in a handkerchief or strap 
which he fastens round his left leg, measuring the length, so 
that when he draws it tight with his left elbow in the air, that 
elbow shall just reach as high as his crown. Thus you see, so 
long as he chooses to keep his left elbow up, regardless of cuts, 
he has a perfect guard for the left side of his head. Then he ad- 
vances his right hand above and in front of his head, holding his 
stick across so that its point projects an inch or two over his left 
elbow, and thus his whole head is completely guarded, and he 
faces his man armed in like manner, and they stand some three 
feet apart, often nearer, and feint, and strike, and return at one 
another’s heads, until one cries “hold,” or blood flows; in the 
first case they are allowed a minute’s time, and go on again; in 
the latter, another pair of gamesters are called on. If good men 
are playing, the quickness of the returns is marvelous; you hear 
the rattle like that a boy makes drawing his stick along palings, 
only heavier, and the closeness of the men in action to one an- 
other gives it a strange interest, and makes a spell at back- 
swording a very noble sight. 

They are all suited now with sticks, and Joe Willis and the 
gypsy man have drawn the first lot. So the rest lean against 
the rails of the stage, and Joe and the dark man meet in the 
middle, the boards having been strewed with sawdust; Joe’s 
white shirt and spotless drab breeches and boots contrasting 
with the gypsy’s coarse blue shirt and dirty green velveteen 
breeches and leather gaiters. Joe is evidently turning up his 
nose at the other, and half insulted at having to break his head. 

The gypsy is a tough, active fellow, but not very skillful with 
his weapon, so that Joe’s weight and strength tell in a minute; 
he is too heavy metal for him: whack, whack, whack, come his 


ALAS FOR WILLUM! 


40 

blows, breaking down the gypsy’s guard, and threatening to 
reach his head every moment. There it is at last — “ Blood, 
blood! ” shout the spectators, as a thin stream oozes out slowly 
from the roots of his hair, and the umpire calls to them to stop. 
The gypsy scowls at Joe under his brows in no pleasant manner, 
while Master Joe swaggers about, and makes attitudes, and 
thinks himself, and shows that he thinks himself, the greatest 
man in the field. 

Then followed several stout sets-to between the other candi- 
dates for the new hat, and at last come the shepherd and Willum 
Smith. This is the crack set-to of the day. They are both in 
famous wind, and there is no crying “hold”; the shepherd is 
an old hand and up to all the dodges; he tries them one after an- 
other, and very nearly gets at Willum’s head by coming in 
near, and playing over his guard at the halfstick, but somehow 
Willum blunders through, catching the stick on his shoulders, 
neck, sides, every now and then, anywhere but on his head, and 
his returns are heavy and straight, and he is the youngest 
gamester and a favorite in the parish, and his gallant stand 
brings down shouts and cheers, and the knowing ones think he’ll 
win if he keeps steady, and Tom on the groom’s shoulder holds 
his hands together, and can hardly breathe for excitement. 

Alas for Willum! his sweetheart getting tired of female com- 
panionship has been hunting the booths to see where he can 
have got to, and now catches sight of him on the stage in full 
combat. She flushes and turns pale; her old aunt catches 
hold of her, saying, “Bless’ee, child, doan’t’ee go a’nigst ^ it”; 
but she breaks away and runs towards the stage, calling his 
name. Willum keeps up his guard stoutly, but glances for a 
moment towards the vpice. No guard will do it, Willum, with- 
out the eye. The shepherd steps round and strikes, and the 
point of his stick just grazes Willum’s forehead, fetching off the 
skin, and the blood flows, and the umpire cries “ hold,” and poor 
Willum’s chance is up for the day. But he takes it very well, 
and puts on his old hat and coat, and goes down to be scolded by 

^ Near. 


JOE HAS ALL THE LUCK 4t 

his sweetheart, and led away out of mischief. Tom hears him 
say coaxingly as he walks off : — 

“Now doan’t’ee, Rachel! I wouldn’t ha’ done it, only I 
wanted summut to buy’ee a fairing wi’, and I be as vlush o’ 
money as a twod ^ o’ veathers.” ^ 

“ Thee mind what I tells’ee,” rejoins Rachel saucily, “ and 
doan’t’ee kep blethering ^ about fairings.” Tom resolves in his 
heart to give Willum the remainder of his two shillings after 
the backswording. 

Joe Willis has all the luck to-day. His next bout ends in an 
easy victory, while the shepherd has a tough job to break his 
second head; and when Joe and the shepherd meet, and the 
whole circle expect and hope to see him get a broken crown, the 
shepherd slips in the first round and falls against the rails, hurt- 
ing himseK so that the old farmer will not let him go on, much as 
he wishes to try; and that impostor Joe (for he is certainly not 
the best man) struts and swaggers about the stage the conquer- 
ing gamester, though he hasn’t had five minutes’ really trying 
play. 

Joe takes the new hat in his hand, and puts the money into it, 
and then as if a thought strikes him, and he doesn’t think his 
victory quite acknowledged down below, walks to each face of 
the stage, and looks down, shaking the money, and chaffing, as 
how he’ll stake hat and money and another half sovereign “ agin 
any gamester as hasn’t played already.” Cunning Joe! he 
thus gets rid of Willum and the shepherd, who is quite fresh 
again. 

No one seems to like the offer, and the umpire is just coming 
down, when a queer old hat, something like a Doctor of Divin- 
ity’s shovel,^ is chucked onto the stage, and an elderly quiet man 
steps out, who has been watching the play, saying he should like 
to cross a stick wi’ the prodigalish young chap. 

The crowd cheer and begin to chaff Joe, who turns up his 
nose and swaggers across to the sticks. “ Imp ’dent old wos- 

1 Toad. ^ Feathers. ® Silly talking. 

^ A broad-brimmed hat turned up at the sides. 


JOE OUT OF LUCK 


42 

bird!”^ says he, “I’ll break the bald head on un to the 
truth.” 

The old boy is very bald certainly, and the blood will show 
fast enough if you can touch him, Joe. 

He takes off his long-flapped coat, and stands up in a long- 
flapped waistcoat, which Sir Roger de Coverley” might have 
worn when it was new, picks out a stick, and is ready for Master 
Joe, who loses no time, but begins his old game, whack, whack, 
whack, trying to break down the old man’s guard by sheer 
strength. But it won’t do, — he catches every blow close by the 
basket, and though he is rather stiff in his returns, after a min- 
ute walks Joe about the stage, and is clearly a stanch old game- 
ster. Joe now comes in, and making the most of his height, 
tries to get over the old man’s guard at half stick, by which he 
takes a smart blow in the ribs and another on the elbow and 
nothing more. And now he loses wind and begins to puff, and 
the crowd laugh: “Cry ‘hold,’ Joe — thee’st met thy match! ” 
Instead of taking good advice and getting his wind, Joe loses 
his temper, and strikes at the old man’s body. 

“ Blood, blood! ” shout the crowd, “ Joe’s head’s broke! ” 

Who’d have thought it? How did it come? That body- 
blow left Joe’s head unguarded for a moment, and with one turn 
of the wrist the old gentleman has picked a neat little bit of 
skin off the middle of^iis forehead, and though he won’t believe 
it, and hammers on for three more blows despite of the shouts, 
is then convinced by the blood trickling into his eye. Poor Joe 
is sadly crestfallen, and fumbles in his pocket for the other half 
sovereign, but the old gamester won’t have it. “ Keep thy 
money, man, and gi’s thy hand,” says he, and they shake 
hands; but the old gamester gives the new hat to the shepherd, 
and, soon after, the half sovereign to Willum, who thereout 
decorates his sweetheart with ribbons to his heart’s content. 

“ Who can a be? ” “ Wur do a cum from? ” ask the crowd. 
And it soon flies about that the old west-country champion, who 

A thievish bird; used here as a term of reproach for a good-for-nothing 
fellow. 


THE REVELS ARE OVER 43 

played a tie with Shaw the Life-guardsman at “ Vizes ” ^ twenty 
years before, has broken Joe Willis’s crown for him. 

How my country fair is spinning out! I see I must skip the 
wrestling, and the boys jumping in sacks and rolling wheel- 
barrows blindfolded; and the donkey race, and the fight which 
arose thereout, marring the otherwise peaceful “ veast and the 
frightened scurrying away of the female feast-goers, and de- 
scent of Squire Brown, summoned by the wife of one of the com- 
batants to stop it; which he wouldn’t start to do till he had got 
on his top-boots. Tom is carried away by old Benjy, dog-tired 
and surfeited with pleasure, as the evening comes on and the 
dancing begins in the booths; and though Willum and Rachel in 
her new ribbons and many another good lad and lass don’t come 
away just yet, but have a good step out, and enjoy it, and get 
no harm thereby, yet we, being sober folk, will just stroll away 
up through the churchyard, and by the old yew tree; and get 
a quiet dish of tea and a parle ^ with our gossips, as the steady 
ones of our village do, and so to bed. 

That’s the fair true sketch, as far as it goes, of one of the 
larger village feasts in the Vale of Berks,when I was a little boy. 
They are much altered for the worse, I am told. I haven’t 
been at one these twenty years, but I have been at the statute 
fairs in some west-country towns, where servants are hired, 
and greater abominations cannot be found. What village 
feasts have come to, I fear, in many cases, may be read in the 
pages of Yeasty (though I never saw one so bad — thank God!) 

Do you want to know why? It is because, as I said before, 
gentlefolk and farmers have left off joining or taking an interest 
in them. They don’t either subscribe to the prizes, or go down 
and enjoy the fun. 

Is it a good or bad sign? I hardly know. Bad, sure enough, 
if it only arises from the further separation of classes consequent 
on twenty years of buying cheap and selling dear, and its ac- 
companying overwork; or because our sons and daughters have 

1 A contraction of Devizes, a town in the adjoining county of Wiltshire. 

2 Achat. 


44 the old boy MORALIZETH ON YEASTS 

their hearts in London club life, or so-called society, instead of 
in the old English home duties; because farmers’ sons are aping 
fine gentlemen, and farmers’ daughters caring more to make bad 
foreign music than good English cheeses. Good, perhaps, if it 
be that the time for the old “veast” has gone by, that it is 
no longer the healthy sound expression of English country holi- 
day-making; that, in fact, we as a nation have got beyond it, 
and are in a transition state, feeling for and soon likely to find 
some better substitute. 

Only I have just got this to say before I quit the text. Don’t 
let reformers of any sort think that they are going really to lay 
hold of the working boys and young men of England by any 
educational grapnel whatever which hasn’t some bona fide 
equivalent for the games of the old country “veast” in it; some- 
thing to put in the place of the backswording and wrestling 
and racing; something to try the muscles of men’s bodies and 
the endurance of their hearts, and to make them rejoice in their 
strength. In all the new-fangled comprehensive plans which 
I see, this is all left out; and the consequence is, that your great 
Mechanics’ Institutes end in intellectual priggism, and your 
Christian Young Men’s Societies ” in religious Pharisaism. 

Well, well, we must bide our time. Life isn’t all beer and 
skittles ^ — ^but beer and skittles, or something better of the same 
sort, must form a good part of every Englishman’s education. 
If I could only drive this into the heads of you rising Parlia- 
mentary Lords, and young swells who “ have your ways made 
for you,” as the saying is — you, who frequent palaver houses and 
West-end clubs, waiting always ready to strap yourselves on to 
the back of poor dear old John,^ as soon as the present used-up 
lot (your fathers and uncles), who sit there on the great Parlia- 
mentary-majorities’ pack saddle, and make believe they’re guid- 
ing him with their red-tape bridle, tumble or have to be lifted 
off! 

I don’t think much of you yet — I wish I could; though you do 
go talking and lecturing up and down the country to crowded 
1 Ninepins. 2 John Bull. 


THE OLD BOY ADVISETH YOUNG SWELLS 45 

audiences, and are busy with all sorts of philanthropic intellec- 
tualism, and circulating libraries and museums, and Heaven 
only knows what besides; and try to make us think, through 
newspaper reports, that you are, even as we, of the working 
classes. But, bless your hearts, we “ain’t so green,” though 
lots of us of all sorts toady you enough certainly, and try to 
make you think so. 

I’ll tell you what to do now: instead of all this trumpeting and 
fuss, which is only the old Parliamentary-majority dodge over 
again — just you go each of you (you’ve plenty of time for it, 
if you’ll only give up t’other line), and quietly make three or 
four friends, real friends, among us. You’ll find a little trouble 
in getting at the right sort, because such birds don’t come 
lightly to your lure — but found they may be. Take, say, two 
out of the professions, lawyer, parson, doctor — which you will; 
one out of trade, and three or four out of the working classes, 
tailors, engineers, carpenters, engravers — there’s plenty of choice. 
Let them be men of your own ages, mind, and ask them 
to your homes; introduce them to your wives, and sisters, and 
get introduced to theirs; give them good dinners, and talk 
to them about what is really at the bottom of your hearts, and 
box, and run, and row with them, when you have a chance. Do 
all this honestly as man to man, and by the time you come to 
ride old John, )^ou’ll be able to do something more than sit on 
his back, and may feel his mouth with some stronger bridle than 
a red-tape one. 

Ah, if you only would! But you have got too far out of the 
right rut, I fear. Too much over-civilization, and the deceit- 
fulness of riches. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye 
of a needle.” More’s the pity. I never came across but two of 
you, who could value a man wholly and solely for what was in 
him; who thought themselves verily and indeed of the same 
flesh and blood as John Jones the attorney’s clerk, and Bill 
Smith the costermonger, and could act as if they thought so. 


46 


BENJY 


CHAPTER III 

SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES 

Poor old Benjy ! the “ rheumatiz ” has much to answer for all 
through English countrysides, but it never played a scurvier 
trick than in laying thee by the heels, when thou wast yet in a 
green old age. The enemy, which had long been carrying on a 
sort of border warfare, and trying his strength against Benjy’s 
on the battlefield of his hands and legs, now, mustering all his 
forces, began laying siege to the citadel, and overrunning the 
whole country. Benjy was seized in the back and loins; and 
though he made strong and brave fight, it was soon clear enough 
that all which could be beaten of poor old Benjy would have to 
give in before long. 

It was as much as he could do now, with the help of his big 
stick and frequent stops, to hobble down to the canal with Master 
Tom, and bait his hook for him, and sit and watch his angling, 
telling him quaint old country stories; and when Tom had no 
sport, and detecting a rat some hundred yards or so off along 
the bank would rush off with Toby, the turnspit terrier, his other 
faithful companion, in bootless pursuit, he might have tumbled 
in and been drowned twenty times over before Benjy could have 
got near him. 

Cheery and unmindful of himself as Benjy was, this loss of 
locomotive power bothered him greatly. He had got a new ob- 
ject in his old age, and was just beginning to think himself use- 
ful again in the world. He feared much too lest Master Tom 
should fall back again into the hands of Charity and the wom- 
en. So he tried everything he could think of to get set up. 
He even went an expedition to the dwelling of one of those queer 
mortals, who — say what we will, and reason how we will — do 
cure simple people of diseases of one kind or another without 
the aid of physic; and so get to themselves the reputation of 


BENJY’S DECLINE 


47 

using charms, and inspire for themselves and their dwellings 
great respect, not to say fear, amongst a simple folk such as the 
dwellers in the Vale of White Horse. Where this power, or 
whatever else it may be, descends upon the shoulders of a man 
whose ways are not straight, he becomes a nuisance to the 
neighborhood; a receiver of stolen goods, giver of love potions, 
and deceiver of silly women; the avowed enemy of law and or- 
der, of justices of the peace, headboroughs, and gamekeepers. 
Sometimes, however, they are of quite a different stamp, men 
who pretend to nothing, and are with difficulty persuaded to 
exercise their occult arts in the simplest cases. 

Of this latter sort was old farmer Ives, as he was called, the 
“ wise man ’’ to whom Benjy resorted (taking Tom with him as 
usual), in the early spring of the year next after the feast de- 
scribed in the last chapter. Why he was called “ farmer ” I 
cannot say, unless it be that he was the owner of a cow, a pig 
or two, and some poultry, which he maintained on about an 
acre of land inclosed from the middle of a wild common, on 
which probably his father had squatted ^ before lords of manors 
looked as keenly after their rights as they do now. Here he 
had lived no one knew how long, a solitary man. It was often 
rumored that he was to be turned out and his cottage pulled 
down, but somehow it never came to pass; and his pigs and 
cow went grazing on the common, and his geese hissed at the 
passing children and at the heels of the horse of my lord’s stew- 
ard, who often rode by with a covetous eye on the inclosure, 
still unmolested. His dwelling was some miles from our vil- 
lage; so Benjy, who was half ashamed of his errand and wholly 
unable to walk there, had to exercise much ingenuity to get the 
means of transporting himself and Tom thither without excit- 
ing suspicion. However, one fine May morning he managed to 
borrow the old blind pony of our friend the publican,^ and Tom 
persuaded Madam Brown to give him a holiday to spend with 
old Benjy, and to lend them the Squire’s light cart, stored with 
bread and cold meat and a bottle of ale. And so the two in 

1 “To squat” is to settle on land without right or title. ^ Innkeeper. 


48 BENJY RESORTS TO A ^AVISE MAN'' 

high glee started behind old Dobbin, and jogged along the deep- 
rutted plashy roads, which had not been mended after their 
winter’s wear, towards the dwelling of the wizard. About noon 
they passed the gate which opened on to the large common, 
and old Dobbin toiled slowly up the hill, while Benjy pointed 
out a little deep dingle on the left, out of which welled a tiny 
stream. As they crept up the hill the tops of a few birch trees 
came in sight, and blue smoke curling up through their delicate 
light boughs; and then the little white thatched home and patch 
of inclosed ground of farmer Ives, lying cradled in the dingle, 
with the gay gorse common rising behind and on both sides; 
while in front, after traversing a gentle slope, the eye might 
travel for miles and miles over the rich Vale. They now left 
the main road and struck into a green track over the common 
marked lightly with wheel and horseshoe, which led down into 
the dingle and stopped at the rough gate of farmer Ives. Here 
they found the farmer, an iron-gray old man, with a bushy eye- 
brow and strong aquiline nose, busied in one of his vocations. 
He was a horse and cow doctor, and was tending a sick beast 
which had been sent up to be cured. Benjy hailed him as an 
old friend, and he returned the greeting cordially enough, look- 
ing, however, hard for a moment both at Benjy and Tom, to 
see whether there was more in their visit than appeared at first 
sight. It was a work of some difficulty and danger for Benjy to 
reach the ground, which, however, he managed to do without 
mishap; and then he devoted himself to unharnessing Dobbin, 
and turning him out for a graze (“ a run ” one could not say of 
that virtuous steed) on the common. This done, he extricated 
the cold provisions from the cart, and they entered the farmer’s 
wicket; and he, shutting up the knife with which he was taking 
maggots out of the cow’s back and sides, accompanied them 
towards the cottage. A big old lurcher ^ got up slowly from the 
doorstone, stretching first one hind leg and then the other, and 
taking Tom’s caresses and the presence of Toby, who kept, how- 
ever, at a respectful distance, with equal indifference. 

^ A mongrel dog. 


THE “PF75E MAN^S^' SURROUNDINGS 49 

Us be cum to pay ’e a visit. I’ve a been long minded to do’t 
for old sake’s sake, only I vinds I dwont get about now as I’d 
used to’t. I be so plaguy bad wi’ th’ rheumatiz in my back.” 
Benjy paused in hopes of drawing the farmer at once on the sub- 
ject of his ailments without further direct application. 

“Ah, I see as you bean’t quite so lissom as you was,” replied 
the farmer with a grim smile, as he lifted the latch of his door; 
“ we bean’t so young as we was, nother on us, wuss luck.” 

The farmer’s cottage was very like those of the better class of 
peasantry in general. A snug chimney corner with two seats, 
and a small carpet on the hearth, an old flint gun and a pair of 
spurs over the fireplace, a dresser with shelves on which some 
bright pewter plates and crockery-ware were arranged, an old 
walnut table, a few chairs and settles, some framed samplers 
and an old print or two, and a bookcase with some dozen volumes 
on the walls, a rack with flitches of bacon, and other stores 
fastened to the ceiling, and you have the best part of the fur- 
niture. No sign of occult art is to be seen, unless the bundles 
of dried herbs hanging to the rack and in the ingle, and the row 
of labeled phials on one of the shelves, betoken it. 

Tom played about with some kittens who occupied the hearth, 
and with a goat who walked demurely in at the open door, 
while their host and Benjy spread the table for dinner; and was 
soon engaged in conflict with the cold meat, to which he did 
much honor. The two old men’s talk was of old comrades and 
their deeds, mute inglorious Miltons” of the Vale, and of the 
doings thirty years back — which didn’t interest him much, ex- 
cept when they spoke of the making of the canal, and then indeed 
he began to listen with all his ears; and learned to his no small 
wonder that his dear and wonderful canal had not been there 
always — was not in fact so old as Benjy or farmer Ives, which 
caused a strange commotion in his small brain. 

After dinner Benjy called attention to a wart which Tom had 
on the knuckles of his hand, and which the family doctor had 
been trying his skill on without success, and begged the farmer to 
charm it away. Farmer Ives looked at it, muttered something or 


50 WART-CHARMING AND BIRD-CII ARMING 

another over it, and cut some notches in a short stick, which he 
handed to Benjy, giving him instructions for cutting it down 
on certain days, and cautioning Tom not to meddle with the 
wart for a fortnight. And then they strolled out and sat on a 
bench in the sun with their pipes, and the pigs came up and 
grunted sociably and let Tom scratch them; and the farmer, 
seeing how he liked animals, stood up and held his arms in the 
air and gave a call, which brought a flock of pigeons wheeling 
and dashing through the birch trees. They settled down in 
clusters on the farmer’s arms and shoulders, making love to him 
and scrambling over one another’s backs to get to his face; and 
then he threw them all off, and they fluttered about close by, 
and lighted on him again and again when he held up his arms. 
All the creatures about the place were clean and fearless, quite 
unlike their relations elsewhere; and Tom begged to be taught 
how to make all the pigs and cows and poultry in our village 
tame, at which the farmer only gave one of his grim chuckles. 

It wasn’t till they were just ready to go, and old Dobbin was 
harnessed, that Benjy broached the subject of his rheumatism 
again, detailing his symptoms one by one. Poor old boy! He 
hoped the farmer could charm it away as easily as he could 
Tom’s wart, and was ready with equal faith to put another 
notched stick into his other pocket, for the cure of his own 
ailments. The physician shook his head, but nevertheless pro- 
duced a bottle and handed it to Benjy with instructions for use. 
“ Not as ’t’ll do’e much good — leastways I be afeared not,” shad- 
ing his eyes with his hand and looking up at them in the cart; 
“ there’s only one thing as I knows on, as’U cure old folks like 
you and I o’ th’ rheumatiz.” 

“ Wot be that then, farmer? ” inquired Benjy. 

Churchyard mold,” said the old iron-gray man with an- 
other chuckle. And so they said their good-bys and went their 
ways home. Tom’s wart was gone in a fortnight, but not so 
Benjy’s rheumatism, which laid him by the heels more and more. 
And though Tom still spent many an hour with him, as he sat on 
a bench in the sunshine, or by the chimney corner when it was 


JACOB DOODLE-CALF, HARRY WINBURN 51 

cold, he soon had to seek elsewhere for his regular compan- 
ions. 

Tom had been accustomed often to accompany his mother in 
her visits to the cottages, and had thereby made acquaintance 
with many of the village boys of his own age. There was Job 
Rudkin, son of widow Rudkin, the most bustling woman in the 
parish. How she could ever have had such a stolid boy as Job 
for a child must always remain a mystery. The first time Tom 
went to their cottage with his mother. Job was not indoors, but 
he entered soon after, and stood with both hands in his pockets 
staring at Tom. Widow Rudkin, who would have had to cross 
Madam to get at young Hopeful — a breach of good manners of 
which she was wholly incapable — began a series of pantomime 
signs, which only puzzled him, and at last, unable to contain 
herself longer, burst out with, “ Job! Job, where’s thy cap? ” 

“ What! bean’t’e on ma’ head, mother? ” replied Job, slowly 
extricating one hand from a pocket and feeling for the article in 
question; which he found on his head sure enough, and left 
there, to his mother’s horror and Tom’s great delight. 

Then there was poor Jacob Dodson, the half-witted boy, who 
ambled about cheerfully, undertaking messages and little help- 
ful odds and ends for every one, which, however, poor Jacob 
managed always hopelessly to embrangle. Everything came 
to pieces in his hands, and nothing would stop in his head. 
They nicknamed him Jacob Doodle-calf. 

But above all there was Harry Winburn, the quickest and best 
boy in the parish. He might be a year older than Tom, but was 
very little bigger, and he was the Crichton ” of our village boys. 
He could wrestle and climb and run better than all the rest, and 
learned all that the schoolmaster could teach him faster than 
that worthy at all liked. He was a boy to be proud of, with his 
curly brown hair, keen gray eye, straight active figure, and little 
ears and hands and feet, “as fine as a lord’s,” as Charity re- 
marked to Tom one day, talking as usual great nonsense. Lords’ 
hands and ears and feet are just as ugly as other folks’ when 
they are children, as anyone may convince themselves if they 


52 TORYISM OF SQUIRE BROWN 

like to look. Tight boots and gloves, and doing nothing with 
them, I allow make a difference by the time they are twenty. 

Now that Benjy was laid on the shelf, and his young brothers 
were still under petticoat government, Tom, in search of com- 
panions, began to cultivate the village boys generally more and 
more. Squire Brown, be it said, was a true blue Tory ” to the 
backbone, and he believed honestly that the powers which be 
were ordained of God, and that loyalty and steadfast obedience 
were men’s first duties. Whether it were in consequence or in 
spite of his political creed, I do not mean to give an opinion, 
though I have one; but certain it is, that he held therewith 
divers social principles not generally supposed to be true blue 
in color. Foremost of these, and the one which the Squire 
loved to propound above all others, was the belief that a man is 
to be valued wholly and solely for that which he is in himself, 
for that which stands up in the four fleshy walls of him, 
apart from clothes, rank, fortune, and all externals whatsoever. 
Which belief I take to be a wholesome corrective of all polit- 
ical opinions, and, if held sincerely, to make all opinions equally 
harmless, whether they be blue, red, or green. As a necessary 
corollary to this belief. Squire Brown held further that it didn’t 
matter a straw whether his son associated with lords’ sons or 
plowmen’s sons, provided they were brave and honest. He 
himself had played football and gone bird’s-nesting with the 
farmers whom he met at vestry and the laborers who tilled 
their fields, and so had his father and grandfather with their 
progenitors. So he encouraged Tom in his intimacy with the 
boys of the village, and forwarded it by all means in his power, 
and gave them the run of a close ^ for a playground, and pro- 
vided bats and a football for their sports. 

Our village was blessed amongst other things with a well en- 
dowed school. The building stood by itself, apart from the 
master’s house, on an angle of ground where three roads met, 
an old gray stone building with a steep roof and mullioned win- 
dows. On one of the opposite angles stood Squire Brown’s 
^ An inclosure. 


TOM^S WATCHTOWER BY THE SCHOOL 53 

stables and kennel, with their backs to the road, over which 
towered a great elm tree; on the third stood the village car- 
penter and wheelwright’s large open shop, and his house and the 
schoolmaster’s, with long low eaves under which the swallows 
built by scores. 

The moment Tom’s lessons were over, he would now get him 
down to this corner by the stables, and watch till the boys came 
out of school. He prevailed on the groom to cut notches for 
him in the bark of the elm, so that he could climb into the lower 
branches, and there he would sit watching the school door, and 
speculating on the possibility of turning the elm into a dwelling 
place for himself and friends after the manner of the Swiss 
Family Robinson ”! But the school hours were long and Tom’s 
patience short, so that soon he began to descend into the 
street, and go and peep in at the school door and the wheel- 
wright’s shop, and look out for something to while away the 
time.’ Now the wheelwright was a choleric man, and, one fine 
afternoon, returning from a short absence, found Tom occupied 
with one of his pet adzes, the edge of which was fast vanishing 
under our hero’s care. A speedy flight saved Tom from all but 
one sound cuff on the ears, but he resented this unjustifiable 
interruption of his first essays at carpentering, and still more 
the further proceedings of the wheelwright, who cut a switch 
and hung it over the door of his workshop, threatening to use it 
upon Tom if he came within twenty yards of his gate. So Tom, 
to retaliate, commenced a war upon the swallows who dwelt un- 
der the wheelwright’s eaves, whom he harassed with sticks and 
stones, and being fleeter of foot than his enemy, escaped all 
punishment, and kept him in perpetual anger. Moreover, his 
presence about the school door began to incense the master, as 
the boys in that neighborhood neglected their lessons in conse- 
quence; and more than once he issued into the porch, rod in 
hand, just as Tom beat a hasty retreat. And he and the wheel- 
wright, laying their heads together, resolved to acquaint the 
Squire with Tom’s afternoon occupations; but in order to do it 
with effect, determined to take^ him captive and lead him away 


54 TOM^S FOES— THE WHEELWRIGHT, ETC. 

to judgment fresh from his evil-doings. This they would have 
found some difficulty in doing, had Tom continued the war 
single-handed, or rather single-footed, for he would have taken 
to the deepest part of Pebbly Brook to escape them; but, 
like other active powers, he was ruined by his alliances. Poor 
Jacob Doodle-calf could not go to school with the other boys, 
and one fine afternoon, about three o’clock (the school broke 
up at four), Tom found him ambling about the street, and 
pressed him into a visit to the school porch. Jacob, always 
ready to do what he was asked, consented, and the two stole 
down to the school together. Tom first reconnoitered the 
wheelwright’s shop, and seeing no signs of activity, thought all 
safe in that quarter, and ordered at once an advance of all his 
troops upon the school porch. The door of the school was ajar, 
and the boys seated on the nearest bench at once recognized 
and opened a correspondence with the invaders. Tom, waxing 
bold, kept putting his head into the school and making faces at 
the master when his back was turned. Poor Jacob, not in the 
least comprehending the situation, and in high glee at finding 
himself so near the school, which he had never been allowed to 
enter, suddenly, in a fit of enthusiasm, pushed by Tom, and 
ambling three steps into the school, stood there, looking round 
him and nodding with a self-approving smile. The master, 
who was stooping over a boy’s slate, with his back to the door, 
became aware of something unusual, and turned quickly round. 
Tom rushed at Jacob, and began dragging him back by his 
smock frock, ^ and the master made at them, scattering forms 
and boys in his career. Even now they might have escaped, 
but that in the porch, barring retreat, appeared the crafty 
wheelwright, who had been watching all their proceedings. 
So they were seized, the school dismissed, and Tom and 
Jacob led away to Squire Brown as lawful prize, the boys 
following to the gate in groups, and speculating on the re- 
sult. 

The Squire was very angry at first, but the interview, by 
^ A loose outer garment, apronlike in effect. 


PLAY AND WORK 55 

Tom’s pleading, ended in a compromise. Tom was not to go 
near the school till three o’clock, and only then if he had done 
his own lessons well, in which case he was to be the bearer of a 
note to the master from Squire Brown, and the master agreed in 
such case to release ten or twelve of the best boys an hour be- 
fore the time of breaking up, to go off and play in the close. 
The wheelwright’s adzes and swallows were to be forever 
respected; and that hero and the master withdrew to the serv- 
ants’ hall, to drink the Squire’s health, well satisfied with their 
day’s work. 

The second act of Tom’s life may now be said to have begun. 
The war of independence had been over for some time; none of 
the women now, not even his mother’s maid, dared offer to 
help him in dressing or washing. Between ourselves, he had 
often at first to run to Benjy in an unfinished state of toilet; 
Charity and the rest of them seemed to take a delight in putting 
impossible buttons and ties in the middle of his back; but he 
would have gone without nether integuments altogether, sooner 
than have had recourse to female valeting. He had a room to 
himself, and his father gave him sixpence a week pocket money. 
All this he had achieved by Benjy’s advice and assistance. 
But now he had conquered another step in life, the step which 
all real boys so long to make; he had got amongst his equals in 
age and strength, and could measure himself with other boys; 
he lived with those whose pursuits and wishes and ways were 
the same in kind as his own. 

The little governess who had lately been installed in the house 
found her work grow wondrously easy, for Tom slaved at his 
lessons in order to make sure of his note to the schoolmaster. 
So there were very few days in the week in which Tom and 
the village boys were not playing in their close by three o’clock. 
Prisoner’s base, rounders, high-cock-a-lorum, cricket, football, 
he was soon initiated into the delights of them all; and though 
most of the boys were older than himself, he managed to hold 
his own very well. He was naturally active and strong, and 
quick of eye and hand, and had the advantage of light shoes 


RIDING AND WRESTLING 


56 

and well-fitting dress, so that in a short time he could run and 
jump and climb with any of them. 

They generally finished their regular games half an hour or so 
before tea time, and then began trials of skill and strength in 
many ways. Some of them would catch the Shetland pony who 
was turned out in the field, and get two or three together on his 
back, and the little rogue, enjoying the fun, would gallop off 
for fifty yards and then turn round, or stop short and shoot 
them on the turf, and then graze quietly on till he felt another 
load; others played peg-top or marbles, while a few of the 
bigger ones stood up for a bout at wrestling. Tom at first 
only looked on at this pastime, but it had peculiar attractions 
for him^ and he could not long keep out of it. Elbow and 
collar wrestling, as practiced in the western counties, was, next to 
backswording, the way to fame for the youth of the Vale; and 
all the boys knew the rules of it, and were more or less expert. 
But Job Rudkin and Harry Winburn were the stars, the former 
stiff and sturdy, with legs like small towers, the latter pliant as 
india rubber, and quick as lightning. Day after day they 
stood foot to foot, and offered first one hand and then the other, 
and grappled and closed and swayed and strained, till a well- 
aimed crook of the heel or thrust of the loin took effect, and a 
fair back-fall ended the matter. And Tom watched with all 
his eyes, and first challenged one of the less scientific, and threw 
him; and so one by one wrestled his way up to the leaders. 

Then, indeed, for months he had a poor time of it; it was not 
long indeed before he could manage to keep his legs against 
Job, for that hero was slow of offense, and gained his victories 
chiefly by allowing others to throw themselves against his im- 
movable legs and loins. But Harry Winburn was undeniably his 
master; from the first clutch of hands when they stood up, down 
to the last trip which sent him on to his back on the turf, he 
felt that Harry knew more and could do more than he. Luckily, 
Harry’s bright unconsciousness and Tom’s natural good temper 
kept them from ever quarreling; and so Tom worked on and on, 
and trod more and more nearly on Harry’s heels, and at last 


EA RLIEST PL A YMA TES 57 

mastered all the dodges and falls, except one. This one was 
Harry’s own particular invention and pet; he scarcely ever used 
it except when hard pressed, but then out it came, and as sure 
as it did, over went poor Tom. He thought about that fall at 
his meals, in his walks, when he lay awake in bed, in his dreams 
— but all to no purpose; until Harry one day in his open way sug- 
gested to him how he thought it should be met, and in a week 
from that time the boys were equal, save only the shght differ- 
ence of strength in Harry’s favor, which some extra ten months 
of age gave. Tom had often afterwards reason to be thankful 
for that early drilling, and above all for having mastered Harry 
Winburn’s fall. 

Besides their home games, on Saturdays the boys would 
wander all over the neighborhood; sometimes to the downs, or 
up to the camp, where they cut their initials out in the springy 
turf, and watched the hawks soaring, and the “ peert ” bird, as 
Harry Winburn called the gray plover, gorgeous in his wedding 
feathers; and so home, racing down the Manger with many a 
roll among the thistles, or through Uffington-wood to watch the 
fox cubs playing in the green rides; sometimes to Rosy Brook, to 
cut long whispering reeds which grew there, to make panpipes ^ 
of; sometimes to Moor Mills, where was a piece of old forest 
land, with short browsed turf and tufted brambly thickets 
stretching under the oaks, amongst which rumor declared that 
a raven, last of his race, still lingered; or to the sand hills, in 
vain quest of rabbits; and bird’s-nesting, in the season, anywhere 
and everywhere. 

The few neighbors of the Squire’s own rank every now and 
then would shrug their shoulders as they drove or rode by a 
party of boys with Tom in the middle, carrying along bulrushes 
or whispering reeds, or great bundles of cowslip and meadow- 
sweet, or young starlings or magpies, or other spoil of wood, 
brook, or meadow; and Lawyer Red-tape might mutter to 
Squire Straightback at the Board, that no good would come of 
the young Browns, if they were let run wild with all the dirty 
* A musical instrument made of hollow reeds. 


EARLIEST PLAYMATES 


S8 

village boys, whom the best farmers’ sons even would not play 
with. And the Squire might reply with a shake of his head, 
that his sons only mixed with their equals, and never went into 
the village without the governess or a footman. But, luckily. 
Squire Brown was full as stiff-backed as his neighbors, and so 
went on his way; and Tom and his younger brothers, as they 
grew up, went on playing with the village boys, without the idea 
of equality or inequality (except in wrestling, running, and 
climbing) ever entering their heads, as it doesn’t till it’s put 
there by Jack Nastys or fine ladies’ maids. 

I don’t mean to say it would be the case in all villages, but it 
certainly was so in this one; the village boys were full as manly 
and honest, and certainly purer than those in a higher rank; 
and Tom got more harm from his equals in his first fortnight at 
a private school, where he went when he was nine years old, 
than he had from his village friends from the day he left Char- 
ity’s apron strings. 

Great was the grief amongst the village schoolboys when 
Tom drove off with the Squire, one August morning, to meet 
the coach on his way to school. Each of them had given him 
sonie httle present of the best that he had, and his small private 
box was full of peg-tops, white marbles (called “ alley-taws ” in 
the Vale), screws, birds’ eggs, whip-cord, jew’s-harps, and other 
miscellaneous boys’ wealth. Poor Jacob Doodle-calf, in floods 
of tears, had pressed upon him with spluttering earnestness his 
lame pet hedgehog (he had always some poor broken-down beast 
or bird by him) ; but this Tom had been obliged to refuse by the 
Squire’s order. He had given them all a great tea under the 
big elm in their playground, for which Madam Brown had sup- 
plied the biggest cake ever seen in our village; and Tom was 
really as sorry to leave them as they to lose him, but his sorrow 
was not unmixed with the pride and excitement of making a 
new step in life. 

And this feeling carried him through his first parting with his 
mother better than could have been expected. Their love was 
as fair and whole as human love can be, perfect self-sacrifice on 


OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS 59 

the one side, meeting a young and true heart on the other. It 
is not within the scope of my book, however, to speak of family 
relations, or I should have much to say on the subject of Eng- 
lish mothers — ay, and of English fathers, and sisters, and 
brothers, too. 

Neither have I room to speak of our private schools: what I 
have to say is about public schools,” those much abused and 
much belauded institutions peculiar to England. So we must 
hurry through Master Tom’s year at a private school as fast as 
we can. 

It was a fair average specimen, kept by a gentleman, with 
another gentleman as second master; but it was little enough 
of the real work they did — merely coming into school when 
lessons were prepared and all ready to be heard. The whole 
discipline of the school out of lesson hours was in the hands of 
the two ushers,” one of whom was always with the boys in their 
playground, in the school, at meals — in fact, at all times and 
everywhere, till they were fairly in bed at night. 

Now the theory of private schools is (or was) constant super- 
vision out of school, therein differing fundamentally from that 
of public schools. 

It may be right or wrong; but if right, this supervision surely 
ought to be the especial work of the headmaster, the respon- 
sible person. The object of all schools is not to ram Latin and 
Greek into boys, but to make them good English boys, good 
future citizens; and by far the most important part of that work 
must be done, or not done, out of school hours. To leave it, 
therefore, in the hands of inferior men is just giving up the 
highest and hardest part of the work of education. Were I a 
private schoolmaster, I should say, let who will hear the boys 
their lessons, but let me live with them when they are at play 
and rest. 

The two ushers at Tom’s first school were not gentlemen,^ 
and very poorly educated, and were only driving their poor 
trade of usher to get such living as they could out of it. They 
^ What is the meaning of this word in this place? 


THE FIRST LETTER HOME 


6o 

were not bad men, but had little heart for their work, and of 
course were bent on making it as easy as possible. One of the 
methods by which they endeavored to accomplish this was by 
encouraging tale-bearing, which had become a frightfully com- 
mon vice in the school in consequence, and had sapped all the 
foundations of school morality. Another was, by favoring 
grossly the biggest boys, who alone could have given them much 
trouble; whereby those young gentlemen became most abomin- 
able tyrants, oppressing the little boys in all the small mean 
ways which prevail in private schools. 

Poor little Tom was made dreadfully unhappy in his first 
week by a catastrophe which happened to his first letter home. 
With huge labor he had, on the very evening of his arrival, 
managed to fill two sides of a sheet of letter paper with as- 
surances of his love for dear mamma, his happiness at school, 
and his resolves to do all she would wish. This missive, with 
the help of the boy who sat at the desk next him, also a new 
arrival, he managed to fold successfully; but this done, they were 
sadly put to it for means of sealing. Envelopes were then un- 
known, they had no wax, and dared not disturb the stillness of 
the evening school room by getting up and going to ask the 
usher for some. At length Tom’s friend, being of an ingenious 
turn of mind, suggested sealing with ink, and the letter was ac- 
cordingly stuck down with a blob of ink, and duly handed by 
Tom, on his way to bed, to the housekeeper to be posted. It 
was not till four days afterward that that good dame sent for 
him, and produced the precious letter, and some wax, saying, 
“O Master Brown, I forgot to tell you before, but your letter 
isn’t sealed.” Poor Tom took the wax in silence and sealed 
his letter, with a huge lump rising in his throat during the proc- 
ess, and then ran away to a quiet corner of the playground, 
and burst into an agony of tears. The idea of his mother wait- 
ing day after day for the letter he had promised her at once, and 
perhaps thinking him forgetful of her, when he had done all 
in his power to make good his promise, was as bitter a grief as 
any which he had to undergo for many a long year. His wrath 


MAMMY-SICK^' AND ITS RESULTS 6i 

then was proportionately violent when he was aware of two 
boys, who stopped close by him, and one of whom, a fat gaby ^ 
of a fellow, pointed at him and called him “Young mammy- 
sick!” Whereupon Tom arose, and giving vent thus to his 
grief and shame and rage, smote his derider on the nose, and 
made it bleed — which sent that young worthy howling to the 
usher, who reported Tom for violent and unprovoked assault 
and battery. Hitting in the face was a felony punishable 
with flogging, other hitting only a misdemeanor — a distinction 
not altogether clear in principle. Tom, however, escaped the 
penalty by pleading “primum tempus”; ^ and having written 
a second letter to his mother, inclosing some forget-me-nots, 
which he picked on their first half -holiday walk, felt quite happy 
again, and began to enjoy vastly a good deal of his new life. 

These half-holiday walks were the great events of the week. 
The whole fifty boys started after dinner with one of the ushers 
for Hazeldown, which was distant some mile or so from the 
school. Hazeldown measured some three miles round, and in 
the neighborhood were several woods full of all manner of birds 
and butterflies. The usher walked slowly round the down with 
such boys as liked to accompany him; the rest scattered in all 
directions, being only bound to appear again when the usher 
had completed his round, and accompany him home. They 
were forbidden, however, to go anywhere except on the down 
and into the woods, the village being especially prohibited, 
where huge bulPs-eyes, and unctuous toffy ^ might be pro- 
cured in exchange for coin of the realm. 

Various were the amusements to which the boys then betook 
themselves. At the entrance of the down there was a steep 
hillock, like the barrows of Tom’s own downs. This mound 
was the weekly scene of terrific combats, at a game called by the 
queer name of “mud-patties.” The boys who played divided 
into sides under different leaders, and one side occupied the 
mound. Then, all parties having provided themselves with 
many sods of turf, cut with their bread-and-cheese knives, the 
1 Simpleton. ^ “ The first time.” * Taffy. 


62 


THE AMUSEMENTS 


side which remained at the bottom proceeded to assault the 
mound, advancing up on all sides under cover of a heavy fire of 
turfs, and then struggling for victory with the occupants, 
which was theirs as soon as they could, even for a moment, 
clear the summit, when they in turn became the besieged. It 
was a good rough dirty game, and of great use in counteracting 
the sneaking tendencies of the school. Then others of the boys 
spread over the downs, looking for the holes of bumblebees 
and mice, which they dug up without mercy, often (I regret to 
say) killing and skinning the unlucky mice, and (I do not regret 
to say) getting well stung by the bumblebees. Others went 
after butterflies and birds’ eggs in their seasons; and Tom found 
on Hazeldown, for the first time, the beautiful little blue 
butterfly with golden spots on his wings, which he had never 
seen on his own downs, and dug out his first sand martin’s 
nest. This latter achievement resulted in a flogging, for the 
sand martins built in a high bank close to the village, conse- 
quently out of bounds; but one of the bolder spirits of the school, 
who never could be happy unless he was doing something to 
which risk attached, easily persuaded Tom to break bounds and 
visit the martin’s bank. From whence it being only a step to 
the toffy shop, what could be more simple than to go on there 
and fill their pockets; or what more certain than that on their 
return, A distribution of treasure having been made, the usher 
should shortly detect the forbidden smell of bull’s-eyes, and, a 
search ensuing, discover the state of the breeches pockets of 
Tom and his ally? 

This ally of Tom’s was indeed a desperate hero in the sight of 
the boys, and feared as one who dealt in magic, or something ap- 
proaching thereto, which reputation came to him in this wise. 
The boys went to bed at eight, and of course consequently lay 
awake in the dark for an hour or two, telling ghost stories by 
turns. One night when it came to his turn, and he had dried up 
their souls by his story, he suddenly declared that he would 
make a fiery hand appear on the door; and, to the astonishment 
and terror of the boys in his room, a hand, or something like it, 


TOM LEAVES HIS FIRST SCHOOL 63 

in pale light,, did then and there appear. The fame of this ex- 
ploit having spread to the other rooms, and being discredited 
there, the young necromancer declared that the same wonder 
would appear in all the rooms in turn, which it accordingly did; 
and the whole circumstances having been privately reported to 
one of the ushers as usual, that functionary, after listening about 
at the doors of the rooms, by a sudden descent caught the per- 
former in his nightshirt, with a box of phosphorus in his guilty 
hand. Lucifer matches and all the present facilities for getting 
acquainted with fire were then unknown; the very name of phos- 
phorus had something diabolic in it to the boy-mind; so Tom’s 
ally, at the cost of a sound flogging, earned what many older 
folk covet much — the very decided fear of most of his com- 
panions. 

He was a remarkable boy, and by no means a bad one. Tom 
stuck to him till he left, and got into many scrapes by so doing. 
But he was the great opponent of the tale-bearing habits of the 
school, and the open enemy of the ushers; and so worthy of all 
support. 

Tom imbibed a fair amount of Latin and Greek at the school, 
but somehow on the whole it didn’t suit him, or he it, and in the 
holidays he was constantly working the Squire to send him at 
once to a public school. Great was his joy then, when in the 
middle of his third half year, in October, 183-, a fever broke out 
in the village, and the master having himself sickened of it, 
the whole of the boys were sent off at a day’s notice to their 
respective homes. 

The Squire was not quite so pleased as Master Tom to see 
that young gentleman’s brown merry face appear at home, some 
two months before the proper time, for Christmas holidays; 
and so after putting on his thinking cap, he retired to his study 
and wrote several letters, the result of which was, that one 
morning at the breakfast table, about a fortnight after Tom’s 
return, he addressed his wife with— “ My dear, I have arranged 
that Tom shall go to Rugby at once, for the last six weeks of 
this half year, instead of wasting them, riding and loitering 


THE STAGECOACH 


64 

about home. It is very kind of the Doctor ^ to allow it. Will 
you see that his things are all ready by Friday, when I shall 
take him up to town, and send him down the next day by him- 
self.” 

Mrs. Brown was prepared for the announcement, and merely 
suggested a doubt whether Tom were yet old enough to travel 
by himself. However, finding both father and son against her 
on this point, she gave in like a wise woman, and proceeded to 
prepare Tom’s kit for a launch into a public school. 


CHAPTER IV 

THE STAGECOACH 

“Let the steam pot hiss till it’s hot, 

Give me the speed of the Tantivy trot.” 

Vulgar Coaching Song — Author unknown. 

^‘Now, sir, time to get up, if you please. Tallyho coach for 
Leicester’!! be round in half an hour, and don’t wait for no- 
body.” So spake the Boots of the Peacock Inn, Islington,^ at 
half past two o’clock on the morning of a day in the early part 
of November, 183-, giving Tom at the same time a shake by the 
shoulder, and then putting down a candle and carrying off his 
shoes to clean. 

Tom and his father had arrived in town from Berkshire 
the day before, and finding, on inquiry, that the Birmingham 
coaches which ran from the city did not pass through Rugby, but 
deposited their passengers at Dunchurch, a village three miles 
distant on the main road, where said passengers had to wait for 
the Oxford and Leicester coach in the evening, or to take a post 
chaise — ^had resolved that Tom should travel down by the 
Tallyho, which diverged from the main road and passed through 
Rugby itself. And as the Tallyho was an early coach, they had 
driven out to the Peacock to be on the road. 

Tom had never been in London, and would have liked to 

1 Thomas Arnold, Headmaster of Rugby. 2 ^ suburb of London. 


THE PEACOCK, ISLINGTON 6$ 

stop at the Belle Savage, where they had been put down by the 
Star, just at dusk, that he might have gone roving about those 
endless, mysterious, gas-lit streets, which, with their glare and 
hum and moving crowds, excited him so that he couldn’t talk 
even. But as soon as he found that the Peacock arrangement 
would get him to Rugby by twelve o’clock in the day, whereas 
otherwise he wouldn’t be there till the evening, all other plans 
melted away; his one absorbing aim being to become a public 
schoolboy as fast as possible, and six hours sooner or later seem- 
ing to him of the most alarming importance. 

Tom and his father had alighted at the Peacock, at about 
seven in the evening; and having heard with unfeigned joy the 
paternal order at the bar, of steaks and oyster sauce for supper 
in hah an hour, and seen his father seated cozily by the bright 
fire in the coffeeroom with the paper in his hand — ^Tom had run 
out to see about him, had wondered at all the vehicles passing 
and repassing, and had fraternized with the boots and hostler, 
from whom he ascertained that the Tallyho was a tiptop goer, 
ten miles an hour, including stoppages, and so punctual that all 
the road set their clocks by her. 

Then being summoned to supper, he had regaled himself, in 
one of the bright little boxes of the Peacock coffeeroom, on the 
beefsteak and unlimited oyster sauce, and brown stout ^ (tasted 
then for the first time — a day to be marked forever by Tom 
with a white stone); had at first attended to the excellent ad- 
vice which his father was bestowing on him from over his glass 
of steaming brandy and water, and then begun nodding, from the 
united effects of the stout, the fire, and the lecture; till the Squire 
observing Tom’s state, and remembering that it was nearly 
nine o’clock and that the Tallyho left at three, sent the little 
fellow off to the chambermaid, with a shake of the hand (Tom 
having stipulated in the morning before starting that kissing 
should now cease between them) and a few parting words. 

‘‘And now, Tom, my boy,” said the Squire, “remember you 
are going, at your own earnest request, to be chucked into this 
1 A strong malt liquor. 


66 SQUIRE BROWN’S PARTING WORDS 

great school, like a young bear with all your troubles before 
you — earlier than we should have sent you, perhaps. If schools 
are what they were in my time, you’ll see a great many cruel 
blackguard things done, and hear a deal of foul bad talk. But 
never fear. You tell the truth, keep a brave and kind heart, 
and never listen to or say anything you wouldn’t have your 
mother and sister hear, and you’ll never feel ashamed to come 
home, or we to see you.” 

The allusion to his mother made Tom feel rather choky, and 
he would have liked to hug his father well, if it hadn’t been for 
the recent stipulation. 

As it was, he only squeezed his father’s hand, and looked 
bravely up and said, “I’ll try, father.” 

“ I know you will, my boy. Is your money all safe?” 

“Yes,” said Tom, diving into one pocket to make sure. 

“And your keys?” said the Squire. 

“All right,” said Tom, diving into the other pocket. 

“Well, then, good night. God bless you! I’ll tell Boots to 
call you, and be up to see you off.” 

Tom was carried off by the chambermaid in a brown study, 
from which he was roused in a clean little attic by that buxom 
person calling him a little darling, and kissing him as she left the 
room; which indignity he was too much surprised to resent. 
And still thinking of his father’s last words, and the look with 
which they were spoken, he knelt down and prayed that, come 
what might, he might never bring shame or sorrow on the dear 
folk at home. 

Indeed, the Squire’s last words deserved to have their effect, 
for they had been the result of much anxious thought. All the 
way up to London he had pondered what he should say to Tom 
by way of parting advice; something that the boy could keep 
in his head ready for use. By way of assisting meditation, he 
had even gone the length of taking out his flint and steel, and 
hammering away for a quarter of an hour till he had manufac- 
tured a light for a long Trichinopoli cheroot, which he silently 
puffed; to the no small wonder of coachee, who was an old 


THE SQUIRES MEDITATIONS 67 

friend, and an institution on the Bath road, and who al- 
ways expected a talk on the prospects and doings, agricul- 
tural and social, of the whole county when he carried the 
Squire. 

To condense the Squire’s meditation, it was somewhat as fol- 
lows: “I won’t tell him to read his Bible, and love and serve 
God; if he don’t do that for his mother’s sake and teaching, he 
won’t for mine. Shall I go into the sort of temptations he’ll 
meet with? No, I can’t do that. Never do for an old fellow to 
go into such things with a boy. He won’t understand me. Do 
him more harm than good, ten to one. Shall I tell him to mind 
his* work, and say he’s sent to school to make himself a good 
scholar? Well, but he isn’t sent to school for that — at any 
rate, not for that mainly. I don’t care a straw for Greek 
particles, or the digamma, no more does his mother. What is 
he sent to school for? Well, partly because he wanted so to go. 
If he’ll only turn out a brave, helpful, truth-telling Englishman, 
and a gentleman, and a Christian, that’s all I want,” thought 
the Squire; and upon this view of the case, framed his last 
words of advice to Tom, which were well enough suited to his 
purpose. 

For they were Tom’s first thoughts as he tumbled out of bed 
at the summons of Boots, and proceeded rapidly to wash and 
dress himself. At ten minutes to three he was down in the 
coffeeroom in his stockings, carrying his hatbox, coat, and 
comforter in his hand; and there he found his father nursing a 
bright fire, and a cup of hot coffee and a hard biscuit on the 
table. 

“Now, then, Tom, give us your things here, and drink this; 
there’s nothing like starting warm, old fellow.” 

Tom addressed himself to the coffee, and prattled away 
while he worked himself into his shoes and his greatcoat, well 
warmed through — a Petersham coat with velvet collar, made 
tight after the abominable fashion of those days. And just as 
he is swallowing his last mouthful, winding his comforter round 
his throat, and tucking the ends into the breast of his coat, the 


68 


THE TALLYHO 


horn sounds, Boots looks in and says, “Tallyho, sir”; and they 
hear the ring and the rattle of the four fast trotters and the 
town-made drag,^ as it dashes up to the Peacock. 

“Anything for us. Bob?” says the burly guard, dropping down 
from behind, and slapping himself across the chest. 

“Young genl’m’n, Rugby; three parcels, Leicester; hamper o^ 
game, Rugby,” answers Hostler. • 

“Tell young gent to look alive,” says guard, opening the hind 
boot ^ and shooting in the parcels after examining them by the 
lamps. “Here, shove the portmanteau up a-top — I’ll fasten 
him presently. Now, then, sir, jump up behind.” 

“Good-by, father — my love at home.” A last shake of 'the 
hand. Up goes Tom, the guard catching his hatbox and holding 
on with one hand, while with the other he claps the horn to his 
mouth. Toot, toot, toot! the hostlers let go their heads, the four 
bays plunge at the collar, and away goes the Tallyho into the 
darkness, forty-five seconds from the time they pulled up; 
Hostler, Boots, and the Squire stand looking after them under 
the Peacock lamp. 

“Sharp work!” says the Squire, and goes in again to his bed, 
the coach being well out of sight and hearing. 

Tom stands up on the coach and looks back at his father’s 
figure as long as he can see it, and then the guard having dis- 
posed of his luggage comes to an anchor, and finishes his button- 
ings and other preparations for facing the three hours before 
dawn; no joke for those who minded cold, on a fast coach in No- 
vember, in the reign of his late Majesty.^ 

1 sometimes think that you boys of this generation are a deal 
tenderer fellows than we used to be. At any rate, you’re much 
more comfortable travelers, for I see every one of you with his 
rug or plaid, and other dodges for preserving the caloric, and 
most of you going in those fuzzy, dusty, padded first-class 
carriages. It was another affair altogether, a dark ride on the 
top of the Tallyho, I can tell you, in a tight Petersham coat, and 

1 A coach with additional seats on top. 

2 A compartment for luggage. 


King William IV. 


A NOVEMBER RIDE IN OLD TIME 69 

your feet dangling six inches from the floor. Then you knew 
what cold was, and what it was to be without legs, for not a bit 
of feeling had you in them after the first half hour. But it had 
its pleasures, the old dark ride. First there was the conscious- 
ness of silent endurance, so dear to every Englishman — of 
standing out against something, and not giving in. Then there 
were the music of the rattling harness, and the ring of the 
horses’ feet on the hard road, and the glare of the two bright 
lamps through the steaming hoar frost, over the leaders’ ears, 
into the darkness; and the cheery toot of the guard’s horn, to 
warn some drowsy pikeman ^ or the hostler at the next change; 
and the looking forward to daylight — and last, but not least, 
the delight of returning sensation in your toes. 

Then the break of dawn and the sunrise, where can they be 
ever seen in perfection but from a coach roof? You want motion 
and change and music to see them in their glory; not the music 
of singing men and singing women, but good silent music, 
which sets itself in your own head, the accompaniment of work 
and getting over the ground. 

The Tallyho is past St. Albans, and Tom is enjoying the ride, 
though half frozen. The guard, who is alone with him on the 
back of the coach, is silent, but has muffled Tom’s feet up in 
straw, and put the end of an oat sack over his knees. The 
darkness has driven him inwards, and he has gone over his little 
past life, and thought of all his doings and promises, and of his 
mother and sister, and his father’s last words; and has made 
fifty good resolutions, and means to bear himself like a brave 
Brown as he is, though a young one. Then he has been forward 
into the mysterious boy-future, speculating as to what sort of a 
place Rugby is, and what they do there, and calling up all the 
stories of public schools which he has heard from big boys in the 
holidays. He is chock-full of hope and life, notwithstanding 
the cold, and kicks his heels against the backboard, and would 
like to sing, only he doesn’t know how his friend the silent 
guard might take it. 


^ Collector of tolls. 


70 


PULLING UP 


And now the dawn breaks at the end of the fourth stage, and 
the coach pulls up at a little roadside inn with huge stables be- 
hind. There is a bright fire gleaming through the red cur- 
tains of the bar window, and the door is open. The coachman 
catches his whip into a double thong, and throws it to the 
hostler; the steam of the horses rises straight up into the air. He 
has put them along over the last two miles, and is two minutes 
before his time; he rolls down from the box and into the inn. 
The guard rolls off behind. “Now, sir,” says he to Tom, “you 
just jump down, and I’ll give you a drop of something to keep 
the cold out.” 

Tom finds a difficulty in jumping, or indeed in finding the top 
of the wheel with his feet, which may be in the next world for 
all he feels; so the guard picks him off the coach top, and sets 
him on his legs, and they stump off into the bar, and join the 
coachman and the other outside passengers. 

Here a fresh-looking barmaid serves them each with a glass 
of early purl ^ as they stand before the fire, coachman and guard 
exchanging business remarks. The purl warms the cockles of 
Tom’s heart, and makes him cough. 

“Rare tackle that, sir, of a cold morning,” says the coach- 
man, smiling. “Time’s up.” They are out again and up; 
coachee the last, gathering the reins into his hands and talking 
to Jem the hostler about the mare’s shoulder, and then swinging 
himself up on to the box — the horses dashing off in a canter be- 
fore he falls into his seat. Toot- toot- too tie- too goes the horn, 
and away they are again, five and thirty miles on their road 
(nearly half way to Rugby, thinks Tom), and the prospect of 
breakfast at the end of the stage. 

And now they begin to see, and the early life of the country- 
side comes out; a market cart or two, men in smock frocks going 
to their work, pipe in mouth, a whiff of which is no bad smell this 
bright morning. The sun gets up, and the mist shines like 
silver gauze. They pass the hounds jogging along to a distant 
meet, at the heels of the huntsman’s hack, whose face is about 
1 Hot beer with gin, sugar, and spices. 


MORNING SIGHTS AND DOINGS 71 

the color of the tails of his old pink/ as he exchanges greetings 
with coachman and guard. Now they pull up at a lodge, and 
take on board a well muffled up sportsman, with his gun case 
and carpetbag. An early up-coach meets them, and the coach- 
men gather up their horses, and pass one another with the ac- 
customed lift of the elbow, each team doing eleven miles an 
hour, with a mile to spare behind if necessary. And here comes 
breakfast. 

“Twenty minutes here, gentlemen,” says the coachman, as 
they pull up at half past seven at the inn door. 

Have we not endured nobly this morning, and is not this a 
worthy reward for much endurance? There is the low dark 
wainscoted room hung with sporting prints; the hatstand 
(with a whip or two standing up in it, belonging to bagmen ^ 
who are still snug in bed) by the door; the blazing fire, with the 
quaint old glass over the mantelpiece, in which is stuck a large 
card with the list of the meets for the week of the county hounds. 
The table covered with the whitest of cloths and of china, and 
bearing a pigeon pie, ham, round of cold boiled beef cut from a 
mammoth ox, and the great loaf of household bread on a wooden 
trencher.^ And here comes in the stout head waiter puffing 
under a tray of hot viands: kidneys and a steak, transparent 
rashers ^ and poached eggs, buttered toast and muffins, coffee and 
tea, all smoking hot. The table can never hold it all; the cold 
meats are removed to the sideboard, they were only put on for 
show, and to give us an appetite. And now fall on, gentlemen all. 
It is a well-known sporting house, and the breakfasts are famous. 
Two or three men in pink, on their way to the meet, drop in, 
and are very jovial and sharp-set, as indeed we all are. 

“Tea or coffee, sir?” says head waiter, coming round to Tom. 

“ Coffee, please,” says Tom, with his mouth full of muffin and 
kidney; coffee is a treat to him, tea is not. 

Our coachman, I perceive, who breakfasts with us, is a cold 
beef man. He also eschews hot potations, and addicts himself 

1 Scarlet hunting coat. ^ Commercial travelers. 

* A large platter. ■* Slices of bacon. 


BREAKFAST 


72 

to a tankard of ale, which is brought him by the barmaid. 
Sportsman looks on approvingly, and orders a ditto for himself. 

Tom has eaten kidney and pigeon pie, and imbibed coffee, till 
his little skin is as tight as a drum; and then has the further 
pleasure of paying head waiter out of his own purse, in a dig- 
nified manner, and walks out before the inn door to see the 
horses put to. This is done leisurely and in a highly finished 
manner by the hostlers, as if they enjoyed the not being hur- 
ried. Coachman comes out with his waybill ^ and puffing a 
fat cigar which the sportsman has given him. Guard emerges 
from the tap,^ where he prefers breakfasting, licking round a 
tough-looking doubtful cheroot, which you might tie round 
your finger, and three whifis of which would knock any one else 
out of time. 

The pinks stand about the inn door lighting cigars and waiting 
to see us start, while their hacks are led up and down the market 
place on which the inn looks. They all know our sportsman, 
and we feel a reflected credit when we see him chatting and 
laughing with them. 

“Now, sir, please,” says the coachman; all the rest of the pas- 
sengers are up; the guard is locking the hind boot. 

“A good run to you!” says the sportsman to the pinks, and is 
by the coachman’s side in no time. 

“Let ’em go, Dick!” The hostlers fly back, drawing off 
the cloths from their glossy loins, and away we go through the 
market place and down the High Street, looking in at the first- 
floor windows, and seeing several worthy burgesses shaving 
thereat; while all the shopboys who are cleaning the windows, 
and housemaids who are doing the steps, stop and look pleased as 
we rattle past, as if we were a part of their legitimate morning’s 
amusement. We clear the town, and are well out between the 
hedgerows again as the town clock strikes eight. 

The sun shines almost warmly, and breakfast has oiled all 
springs and loosened all tongues. Tom is encouraged by a re- 
mark or two of the guard’s between the puffs of his oily cheroot, 
1 List of passengers. 2 Barroom. 


GUARD DISCOURSES ON RUGBY 


73 

and besides is getting tired of not talking. He is too full of his 
destination to talk about anything else; and so asks the guard if 
he knows Rugby. 

“Goes through it every day of my life. Twenty minutes 
after twelve down — ten o’clock up.” 

“What sort of a place is it, please?” says Tom. 

Guard looks at him with a comical expression. “Werry 
out-o’-the-way place, sir; no paving to streets, nor no hghting. 
’Mazin’ big horse and cattle fair in autumn — lasts a week — just 
over now. Takes town a week to get clean after it. Fairish 
hunting country. But slow place, sir, slow place; off the main 
road, you see — only three coaches a day, and one on ’em a two- 
oss wan, more like a hearse nor a coach — Regulator — comes from 
Oxford. Young genl’m’n at school calls her Pig and Whistle, 
and goes up to college by her (six miles an hour) when they 
goes to enter. Belong to school, sir?” 

“Yes,” says Tom, not unwilling for a moment that the guard 
should think him an old boy. But then having some qualms as 
to the truth of the assertion, and seeing that if he were to assume 
the character of an old boy he couldn’t go on asking the ques- 
tions he wanted, added — “ that is to say, I’m on my way there. 
I’m a new boy.” 

The guard looked as if he knew this quite as well as Tom. 

“You’re werry late, sir,” says the guard; “only six weeks 
to-day to the end of the half.” Tom assented. “We takes up 
fine loads this day six weeks, and Monday and Tuesday arter. 
Hopes we shall have the pleasure of carrying you back.” 

Tom said he hoped they would; but he thought within him- 
self that his fate would probably be the Pig and Whistle. 

“It pays uncommon cert’nly,” continues the guard. 

“Werry free with their cash is the young genl’m’n. But, 
Lor’ bless you, we gets into such rows all ’long the road, what 
wi’ their pea shooters, and long whips, and hollering, and up- 
setting every one as comes by; I’d a sight sooner carry one or 
two on ’em, sir, as I may be a carryin’ of you now, than a coach 
load.” 


PEA SHOOTERS 


74 

“What do they do with the pea shooters?’’ inquires Tom. 

“ Do wi’ ’em ! why, peppers every one’s faces as we comes near, 
’cept the young gals, and breaks windows wi’ them, too, some on 
’em shoots so hard. Now ’t was just here last June, as we was a 
driving up the first-day boys, they was mendin’ a quarter mile 
of road, and there was a lot of Irish chaps, reg’lar roughs, a 
breaking stones. As we comes up, ‘Now boys,’ says young 
gent on the box (smart young fellow and desper’t reckless),' 
‘here’s fun! let the Pats have it about the ears.’ ‘God’s sake, 
sir!’ says Bob (that’s my mate the coachman), ‘don’t go for 
to shoot at ’em, they’ll knock us off the coach.’ ‘ Damme, 
Coachee,’ says young my lord, ‘you ain’t afraid; hoora, boys! 
let ’em have it.’ ‘Hoora!’ sings out the others, and fill their 
mouths chock-full of peas to last the whole line. Bob seeing 
as ’t was to come, knocks his hat over his eyes, hollers to his 
’osses, and shakes ’em up, and away we goes up to the line on 
’em, twenty miles an hour. The Pats begin to hoora, too, 
thinking it was a runaway, and first lot on ’em stands grinnin’ 
and wavin’ their old hats as we comes abreast on ’em; and then 
you’d ha’ laughed to see how took aback and choking savage 
they looked, when they gets the peas a stinging all over ’em. 
But bless you, the laugh weren’t all on our side, sir, by a long 
way. We was going so fast, and they was so took aback, that 
they didn’t take what was up till we was halfway up the line. 
Then ’t was, ‘ look out all,’ surely. They howls all down the line 
fit to frighten you, some on ’em runs arter us and tries to clamber 
up behind, only we hits ’em over the fingers and pulls their hands 
off ; one as had had it very sharp act’ly runs right at the leaders, 
as though he’d ketch ’em by the heads, only luck’ly for him he 
misses his tip, and comes over a heap o’ stones first. The rest 
picks up stones, and gives it us right away till we gets out of 
shot, the young gents holding out werry manful with the pea 
shooters and such stones as lodged on us, and a pretty many 
there was, too. Then Bob picks hisself up again, and looks at 
young gent on box werry solemn. Bob’d had a rum un in the 
ribs, which’d like to ha’ knocked him off the box, or made him 


BATTLE WITH THE PATS 75 

drop the reins. Young gent on box picks hisself up, and so does 
we all, and looks round to count damage. Box’s head ^ cut open 
and his hat gone; ’nother young gent’s hat gone; mine knocked in 
at the side, and not one on us as wasn’t black and blue some- 
wheres or another, most on ’em all over. Two pound ten to pay 
for damage to paint, which they subscribed for there and then, 
and give Bob and me a extra half sovereign each; but I wouldn’t 
go down that line again not for twenty half sovereigns.” And 
the guard shook his head slowly, and got up and blew a clear 
brisk toot, toot. 

“What fun!” said Tom, who could scarcely contain his pride 
at this exploit of his future schoolfellows. He longed already 
for the end of the half, that he might join them. 

“ ’Tain’t such good fun, though, sir, for the folk as meets the 
coach, nor for we who has to go back with it next day. Them 
Irishers last summer had all got stones ready for us, and was all 
but letting drive, and we’d got two reverend gents aboard, too. 
We pulled up at the beginning of the line, and pacified them, and 
we’re never going to carry no more pea shooters, unless they 
promises not to fire where there’s a line of Irish chaps a stone- 
breaking.” The guard stopped and pulled away at his cheroot, 
regarding Tom benignantly the while. 

“Oh, don’t stop! tell us something more about the pea 
shooting.” 

“ Well, there’d like to have been a pretty piece of work over it 
at Bicester, a while back. We was six mile from town, when we 
meets an old square-headed gray-haired yeoman chap, a jogging 
along quite quiet. He looks up at the coach, and just then a pea 
hits him on the nose, and some catches his cob ^ behind and 
makes him dance up on his hind legs. I see’d the old boy’s face 
flush and look plaguy awkward, and I thought we was in for 
somethin’ nasty. 

“He turns his cob’s head, and rides quietly after us just out of 

1 The head of the young gentleman sitting on the box or seat next to the 
driver. 

2 A short-legged horse of stylish action. 


THE OLD YEOMAN 


76 

shot. How that ere cob did step! we never shook him off not a 
dozen yards in the six miles. At first the young gents was werry 
lively on him; but afore we got in, seeing how steady the old 
chap come on, they was quite quiet, and laid their heads to- 
gether what they should do. Some was for fighting, some for 
axing his pardon. He rides into the town close after us, comes 
up when we stops, and says the two as shot at him must come 
before a magistrate; and a great crowd comes round, and we 
couldn’t get the osses to. But the young uns they all stand by 
one another, and says all or none must go, and as how they’d 
fight it out, and have to be carried. Just as ’t was gettin’ 
serious, and the old boy and the mob was going to pull ’em off 
the coach, one little fellow jumps up and says, ‘Here — ^I’ll stay — 
I’m only going three miles farther. My father’s name’s Davis, 
he’s known about here, and I’ll go before the magistrate with this 
gentleman.’ ‘What! be thee parson Davis’ son?’ says the old 
boy. ‘Yes,’ says the young un. ‘Well, I be mortal sorry to 
meet thee in such company, but for thy father’s sake and thine 
(for thee bi’st a brave young chap) I’ll say no more about it.’ 
Didn’t the boys cheer him, and the mob cheered the young 
chap — and then one of the biggest gets down, and begs his par- 
don werry gentlemanly for all the rest, saying as they all had 
been plaguy vexed from the first, but didn’t like to ax his par- 
don till then, ’cause they felt they hadn’t ought to shirk the 
consequences of their joke. And then they all got down, and 
shook hands with the old boy, and asked him to all parts of the 
country, to their homes, and we drives off twenty minutes behind 
time, with cheering and hollering as if we was county members. 
But, Lor’ bless you, sir,” says the guard, smacking his hand down 
on his knee and looking full into Tom’s face, “ten minutes arter 
they was all as bad as ever.” 

Tom showed such undisguised and open-mouthed interest in 
his narrations, that the old guard rubbed up his memory, and 
launched out into a graphic history of all the performances of 
the boys on the roads for the last twenty years. Off the road 
he couldn’t go; the exploit must have been connected with 


BLOW-HARD AND HIS YARNS 77 

horses or vehicles to hang in the old fellow’s head. Tom tried 
him off his own ground once or twice, but found he knew noth- 
ing beyond, and so let him have his head,^ and the rest of the 
road bowled easily away; for old Blow-hard (as the boys called 
him) was a dry old file,^ with much kindness and humor, and a 
capital spinner of a yarn when he had broken the neck of his 
day’s work, and got plenty of ale under his belt. 

What struck Tom’s youthful imagination most was the 
desperate and lawless character of most of the stories. Was the 
guard hoaxing him? He couldn’t help hoping that they were 
true. It’s very odd how almost all English boys love danger; 
you can get ten to join a game, or climb a tree, or swim a stream, 
when there’s a chance of breaking their limbs or getting drowned, 
for one who’ll stay on level ground, or in his depth, or play quoits 
or bowls. 

The guard had just finished an account of a desperate fight 
which had happened at one of the fairs between the drovers and 
the farmers with their whips, and the boys with cricket bats and 
wickets, which arose out of a playful but objectionable prac- 
tice of the boys going round to the public houses and taking the 
linchpins out of the wheels of the gigs, and was moralizing upon 
the way in which the Doctor, ‘‘a terrible stern man he’d heard 
tell,” had come down upon several of the performers, “send- 
ing three on ’em off next morning, each in a po’chay^ with 
a parish constable,” when they turned a corner and neared 
the milestone, the third from Rugby. By the stone two 
boys stood, their jackets buttoned tight, waiting for the 
coach. 

“Look here, sir,” says the guard, after giving a sharp toot 
toot, “there’s two on ’em, out-and-out runners they be. They 
comes out about twice or three times a week, and spurts a mile 
alongside of us.” 

And as they came up, sure enough, away went the two boys 
along the footpath, keeping up with the horses; the first a light 
clean-made fellow going on springs, the other, stout and round- 

1 Talk according to his own pleasure. ^ Shrewd fellow. ^ Post chaise. 


THE RUNNERS 


78 

shouldered, laboring in his pace, but going as dogged as a bull 
terrier. 

Old Blow-hard looked on admiringly. “ See how beautiful that 
there un holds hisself together, and goes from his hips, sir,” said 
he; “he’s a ’mazin’ fine runner. Now many coachmen as drives 
a first-rate team ’d put it on, and try and pass ’em. But Bob, sir, 
bless you, he’s tender-hearted; he’d sooner pull in a bit if he 
seed ’em a gettin’ beat. I do b’lieve too as that there un ’d 
sooner break his heart than let us go by him afore next mile- 
stone.” 

At the second milestone the boys pulled up short, and waved 
their hats to the guard, who had his watch out and shouted 
“4.56,” thereby indicating that the mile had been done in four 
seconds under the five minutes. They passed several more 
parties of boys, all of them objects of the deepest interest to 
Tom, and came in sight of the town at ten minutes before 
twelve. Tom fetched a long breath, and thought he had never 
spent a pleasanter day. Before he went to bed he had quite 
settled that it must be the greatest day he should ever spend, 
and didn’t alter his opinion for many a long year — if he has yet. 

CHAPTER V 

RUGBY AND FOOTBALL 

“ — Foot and eye opposed 
In dubious strife.” 

Scott. 

“And so here’s Rugby, sir, at last, and you’ll be in plenty of 
time for dinner at the Schoolhouse,^ as I tell’d you,” said the old 
guard, pulling his horn out of its case, and tootle- tooing away; 
while the coachman shook up his horses, and carried them along 
the side of the school close, round Dead-man’s corner, past the 
school gates, and down the High Street to the Spread Eagle; 
the wheelers in a spanking trot, and leaders cantering, in a 

1 That one of the nine Rugby dormitories where the headmaster lived. 


TOM FINDS A PATRON 79 

style which would not have disgraced “Cherry Bob,” “ramp- 
ing, stamping, tearing, swearing Billy Harwood,” or any other 
of the old coaching heroes. 

Tom’s heart beat quick as he passed the great school field 
or close, with its noble elms, in which several games at football 
were going on, and tried to take in at once the long line of gray 
buildings, beginning with the chapel, and ending with the 
Schoolhouse, the residence of the headmaster, where the great 
flag was lazily waving from the highest round tower. And he 
began already to be proud of being a Rugby boy, as he passed 
the school gates, with the oriel window above, and saw the boys 
standing there, looking as if the town belonged to them, and 
nodding in a familiar manner to the coachman, as if any one of 
them would be quite equal to getting on the box, and working 
the team down street as well as he. 

One of the young heroes, however, ran out from the rest, and 
scrambled up behind; where, having righted himself, and nodded 
to the guard, with “How do, Jem?” he turned short round to 
Tom, and, after looking him over for a minute, began, — 

“I say, you fellow, is your name Brown?” 

“Yes,” said Tom, in considerable astonishment — ^glad, how- 
ever, to have lighted on some one already who seemed to know 
him. 

“Ah, I thought so; you know my old aunt. Miss East, she 
lives somewhere down your way in Berkshire. She wrote to me 
that you were coming to-day, and asked me to give you a lift.” 

Tom was somewhat inclined to resent the patronizing air of 
his new friend, a boy of just about his own height and age, but 
gifted with the most transcendent coolness and assurance, 
which Tom felt to be aggravating and hard to bear, but couldn’t 
for the life of him help admiring and envying, especially when 
young my lord begins hectoring two or three long loafing fel- 
lows, half porter, half stableman, with a strong touch of the 
blackguard; and in the end arranges with one of them, nick- 
named Cooey, to carry Tom’s luggage up to the Schoolhouse 
for sixpence. 


8o 


ESTHETICS OF ‘‘ROOFING 


“And heark’ee, Cooey, it must be up in ten minutes, or no 
more jobs from me. Come along, Brown.” And away swag- 
gers the young potentate, with his hands in his pockets, and Tom 
at his side. 

“All right, sir,” says Cooey, touching his hat, with a leer and a 
wink at his companions. 

“Hullo, though,” says East, pulling up, and taking another 
look at Tom, “this’ll never do — haven’t you got a hat? — we 
never wear caps here.” Only the louts ^ wear caps. Bless 
you, if you were to go into quadrangle with that thing on, I — 
don’t know what’d happen.” The very idea was quite beyond 
young Master East, and he looked unutterable things. 

Tom thought his cap a very knowing affair, but confessed that 
he had a hat in his hatbox; which was accordingly at once ex- 
tracted from the hind boot, and Tom equipped in his go-to- 
meeting roof, as his new friend called it. But this didn’t quite 
suit his fastidious taste in another minute, being too shiny; so, as 
they walk up the town, they dive into Nixon’s, the hatter’s, and 
Tom is arrayed, to his utter astonishment, and without paying 
for it, in a regulation cat-skin at seven-and-sixpence; Nixon 
undertaking to send the best hat up to the matron’s room, 
Schoolhouse, in half an hour. 

“You can send in a note for a tile ^ on Monday, and make it all 
right, you know,” said Mentor; “we’re allowed two seven-and- 
sixers a half, besides what we bring from home.” 

Tom by this time began to be conscious of his new social 
position and dignities, and to luxuriate in the realized ambition 
of being a public-school boy at last, with a vested right of 
spoiling two seven-and-sixers in*half a year. 

“You see,” said his friend, as they strolled up towards the 
school gate, in explanation of his conduct — “ a great deal de- 
pends on how a fellow cuts up at first. If he’s got nothing odd 
about him, and answers straightforward, and holds his head up, 

1 Fellows who are queer on account of their non-conformity to accepted 
conventions. 

2 A stiff hat. 


INTRODUCTION TO THE MATRON 8l 

he gets on. Now you’ll do very well as to rig, all but that cap. 
You see I’m doing the handsome thing by you, because my 
father knows yours; besides, I want to please the old lady. 
She gave me half-a-sov this half, and perhaps ’ll double it next, 
if I keep in her good books.” 

There’s nothing for candor like a lower-school boy, and East 
was a genuine specimen — frank, hearty, and good-natured, well 
satisfied with himself and his position, and chock-full of life and 
spirits, and all the Rugby prejudices and traditions which he had 
been able to get together, in the long course of one half year, 
during which he had been at the Schoolhouse. 

And Tom, notwithstanding his bumptiousness, felt friends 
with him at once, and began sucking in all his ways and preju- 
dices as fast as he could understand them. 

East was great in the character of cicerone he carried Tom 
through the great gates, where were only two or three boys. 
These satisfied themselves with the stock questions, — “You 
fellow, what’s your name? Where do you come from? How 
old are you? Where do you board? and. What form ^ are you 
in?” — and so they passed on through the quadrangle and a 
small courtyard, upon which looked down a lot of little windows 
(belonging, as his guide informed him, to some of the School- 
house studies), into the matron’s room, where East introduced 
Tom to that dignitary, made him give up the key of his trunk, 
that the matron might unpack his linen, and told the story of 
the hat and of his own presence of mind;* upon the relation 
whereof the matron laughingly scolded him, for the coolest 
new boy in the house, and East, indignant at the accusation of 
newness, marched Tom off into the quadrangle, and began 
showing him the schools, and examining him as to his literary 
attainments; the result of which was a prophecy that they 
would be in the same form, and could do their lessons to- 
gether. 

“And now come in and see my study; we shall have just time 

1 Purveyor of information. 

2 A class in an English public school is called a form. 


82 


EASTS STUDY 


before dinner; and afterwards, before calling-over, we’ll do the 
close.” 

Tom followed his guide through the Schoolhouse hall, which 
opens into the quadrangle. It is a great room thirty feet long 
and eighteen high, or thereabouts, with two great tables running 
the whole length, and two large fireplaces at the side, with blaz- 
ing fires in them, at one of which some dozen boys were stand- 
ing and lounging, some of whom shouted to East to stop; but 
he shot through with his convoy, and landed him in the long 
dark passages, with a large fire at the end of each, upon which 
the studies opened. Into one of these, in the bottom passage. 
East bolted with our hero, slamming and bolting the door be- 
hind them, in case of pursuit from the hall, and Tom was for the 
first time in a Rugby boy’s citadel. 

He hadn’t been prepared for separate studies, and was not 
a little astonished and delighted with the palace in question. 

It wasn’t very large certainly, being about six feet long by four 
broad. It couldn’t be called light, as there were bars and a 
grating to the window; which little precautions were necessary 
in the studies on the ground floor looking out into the close, to 
prevent the exit of small boys after locking up, and the entrance 
of contraband articles. But it was uncommonly comfortable 
to look at, Tom thought. The space under the window at the 
farther end was occupied by a square table covered with a rea- 
sonably clean and whole red and blue check tablecloth; a hard- 
seated sofa covered with red stuff occupied one side, running up 
to the end, and making a seat for one, or by sitting close, for 
two, at the table; and a good stout wooden chair afforded a seat 
to another boy, so that three could sit and work together. 
The walls were wainscoted halfway up, the wainscot being 
covered with green baize, the remainder with a bright-patterned 
paper, on which hung three or four prints, of dog’s heads, Gri- 
maldi winning the Aylesbury steeplechase, Amy Robsart, the 
reigning Waverley beauty of the day, and Tom Crib in a posture 
of defense, which did no credit to the science of that hero, if 
truly represented. Over the door were a row of hat pegs, and 


THE FURNISHING OF EAST’S STUDY 83 

on each side bookcases with cupboards at the bottom; shelves 
and cupboards being filled indiscriminately with schoolbooks, a 
cup or two, a mousetrap, and brass candlesticks, leather straps, 
a fustian bag, and some curious-looking articles, which puzzled 
Tom not a little, until his friend explained that they were climb- 
ing irons, and showed their use. A cricket bat and small fish- 
ing rod stood up in one corner. 

This was the residence of East and another boy in the same 
form, and had more interest for Tom than Windsor Castle, or 
any other residence in the British Isles. For was he not about 
to become the joint owner of a similar home, the first place 
which he could call his own? One’s own — what a charm there 
is in the words! How long it takes boy and man to find out 
their worth! how fast most of us hold on to them! faster and more 
jealously, the nearer we are to that general home, into which we 
can take nothing, but must go naked as we came into the world. 
When shall we learn that he who multiplieth possessions mul- 
tiplieth troubles, and that the one single use of things which we 
call our own is that they may be his who hath need of them? 

‘‘And shall I have a study like this, too?” said Tom. 

“Yes, of course, you’ll be chummed with some fellow on Mon- 
day, and you can sit here till then.” 

“What nice places!” 

“They’re well enough,” answered East patronizingly, “only 
uncommon cold at night sometimes. Gower — that’s my chum 
— and I make a fire with paper on the floor after supper gener- 
ally, only that makes it so smoky.” 

“But there’s a big fire out in the passage,” said Tom. 

“Precious little good we get out of that, though,” said East; 
“Jones, the praepostor,^ has the study at the fire end, and he has 
rigged up an iron rod and green baize curtain across the passage, 
which he draws at night, and sits there with his door open, so 
he gets all the fire, and hears if we come out of our studies after 

1 A student in the highest form at Rugby. Boys in this form were charged 
with the oversight of the younger boys and for that reason were called pra- 
postors [Latin prae — before, and ponere — to place]. 


84 TOM'S FIRST RUGBY DINNER 

eight, or make a noise. However, he’s taken to sitting in the 
fifth-form room lately, so we do get a bit of fire now sometimes; 
only to keep a sharp lookout that he don’t catch you behind his 
curtain when he comes down — that’s all.” 

A quarter past one now struck, and the bell began tolling for 
dinner, so they went into the hall and took their places, Tom at 
the very bottom of the second table, next to the praepostor (who 
sat at the end to keep order there), and East a few paces higher. 
And now Tom for the first time saw his future schoolfellows in a 
body. In they came, some hot and ruddy from football or long 
walks, some pale and chilly from hard reading in their studies, 
some from loitering over the fire at the pastry cook’s, dainty mor- 
tals, bringing with them pickles and sauce bottles to help them 
with their dinners. And a great big-bearded man, whom Tom 
took for a master, began calling over the names, while the great 
joints were being rapidly carved on a third table in the corner by 
the old verger ^ and the housekeeper. Tom’s turn came last, 
and meanwhile he was all eyes, looking first with awe at the 
great man who sat close to him, and was helped first, and who 
read a hard-looking book all the time he was eating; and when he 
got up and walked off to the fire, at the small boys round him, 
some of whom were reading, and the rest talking in whispers to 
one another, or stealing one another’s bread, or shooting pellets, 
or digging their forks through the tablecloth. However, not- 
withstanding his curiosity, he managed to make a capital dinner 
by the time the big man called “Stand up!” and said grace. 

As soon as dinner was over, and Tom had been questioned by 
such of his neighbors as were curious as to his birth, parentage, 
education, and other like matters. East, who evidently en- 
joyed his new dignity of patron and Mentor,” proposed having a 
look at the close, which Tom, athirst for knowledge, gladly as- 
sented to, and they went out through the quadrangle and past 
the big fives’ ^ court, into the great playground. 

“That’s the chapel you see,” said East, “and there just be- 

^ What are the usual duties of a verger? 

2 Fives is an English game somewhat similar to handball. 


WHITE TROUSERS IN NOVEMBER 8$ 

hind it is the place for fights ; you see it’s most out of the way of 
the masters, who all live on the other side and don’t come by 
here after first lesson or callings-over. That’s when the fights 
come off. And all this part where we are is the little side 
ground, right up to the trees, and on the other side of the trees 
is the big-side ground, where the great matches are played. 
And there’s the island ” in the farthest corner; you’ll know that 
well enough next half, when there’s island fagging.” I say, it’s 
horrid cold; let’s have a run across,” and away went East, Tom 
close behind him. East was evidently putting his best foot 
foremost, and Tom, who was mighty proud of his running, and 
not a little anxious to show his friend that although a new boy 
he was no milksop, laid himself down to work in his very best 
style. Right across the close they went, each doing all he 
knew, and there wasn’t a yard between them when they pulled 
up at the island moat. 

“I say,” said East, as soon as he got his wind, looking with 
much increased respect at Tom, “you ain’t a bad scud,^ not by 
no means. Well, I’m as warm as a toast now.” 

“But why do you wear white trousers in November?” said 
Tom. He had been struck by this peculiarity in the costume 
of almost all the Schoolhouse boys. 

“Why, bless us, don’t you know? — No, I forgot. Why, to- 
day’s the Schoolhouse match. Our house plays the whole of 
the school at football. And we all wear white trousers, to show 
’em we don’t care for hacks. ^ You’re in luck to come to-day. 
You just will see a match; and Brooke’s going to let me play in 
quarters.^ That’s more than he’ll do for any other lower- 
school boy, except James, and he’s fourteen.” 

“ Who’s Brooke?” 

“Why, that big fellow who called over at dinner, to be sure. 
He’s cock of the school, and head of the Schoolhouse side, and 
the best kick and charger in Rugby.” 

1 Runner. ^ Kicks on the shins. 

3 The name of one of the positions on the football team. It is not the same 
as the quarterback position in the American game. 


86 


EAST DISCOURSETH ON FOOTBALL 


“Oh, but do show me where they play. And tell me about it. 
I love football so, and have played all my life. Won’t Brooke 
let me play?” 

“Not he,” said East, with some indignation; “why, you don’t 
know the rules — you’ll be a month learning them. And then it’s 
no joke playing up in a match, I can tell you. Quite another 
thing from your private-school games. Why, there’s been two 
collar bones broken this half, and a dozen fellows lamed. And 
last year a fellow had his leg broken.” 

Tom listened with the profoundest respect to this chapter of 
accidents, and followed East across the level ground till they 
came to a sort of gigantic gallows of two poles eighteen feet high, 
fixed upright in the ground some fourteen feet apart, with a 
cross bar running from one to the other at the height of ten 
feet or thereabouts. 

“This is one of the goals,” said East, “and you see the other, 
across there, right opposite, under the Doctor’s wall. Well, the 
match is for the best of three goals; whichever side kicks two 
goals wins: and it won’t do, you see, just to kick the ball through 
these posts, it must go over the cross bar; any height’ll do, so 
long as it’s between the posts. You’ll have to stay in goal to 
touch the ball when it rolls behind the posts, because if the other 
side touch it they have a try at goal. Then we fellows in quar- 
ters, we play just about in front of goal here, and have to turn 
the ball and kick it back before the big fellows on the other side 
can follow it up. And in front of us all the big fellows play, and 
that’s where the scrummages ^ are mostly.” 

Tom’s respect increased as he struggled to make out his 
friend’s technicalities, and the other set to work to explain the 
mysteries of “off your side,” “drop kicks,” “punts,” “places,” 
and the other intricacies of the great science of football. 

“But how do you keep the ball between the goals?” said he; 
“ I can’t see why it mightn’t go right down to the chapel.” 

“Why, that’s out of play,” answered East. “You see this 
gravel walk running down all along this side of the playing 
^ Scrimmages. 


THE LAWS OF FOOTBALL 87 

ground, and the line of elms opposite on the other? Well, 
they’re the bounds. As soon as the ball gets past them, it’s in 
touch, and out of play. And then, whoever first touches it, 
has to knock it straight out amongst the players-up, who make 
two lines with a space between them, every fellow going dn his 
own side. Ain’t there just fine scrummages then! and the three 
trees you see there which come out into the play — that’s a tre- 
mendous place when the ball hangs there, for you get thrown 
against the trees, and that’s worse than any hack.” 

Tom wondered within himself as they strolled back again 
towards the fives’ court whether the matches were really such 
break-neck affairs as East represented, and whether, if they 
were, he should ever get to like them and play-up well. 

He hadn’t long to wonder, however, for next minute East 
cried out, “Hurra! here’s the punt-about, — come along and try 
your hand at a kick.” The punt-about is the practice ball, 
which is just brought out and kicked about anyhow from one 
boy to another before callings-over and dinner, and at other odd 
times. They joined the boys who had brought it out, all small 
Schoolhouse fellows, friends of East; and Tom had the pleasure 
of trying his skill, and performed very creditably, after first 
driving his foot three inches into the ground, and then nearly 
kicking his leg into the air, in vigorous efforts to accomplish a 
drop kick after the manner of East. 

Presently more boys and bigger came out, and boys from other 
houses on their way to calling-over, and more balls were sent 
for. The crowd thickened as three o’clock approached; and 
when the hour struck, one hundred and fifty boys were hard at 
work. Then the balls were held, the master of the week came 
down in cap and gown to calling-over, and the whole school of 
three hundred boys swept into the big school to answer to their 
names. 

“I may come in, mayn’t I?” said Tom, catching East by the 
arm and longing to feel one of them. 

“Yes, come along, nobody’ll say anything. You won’t be so 
eager to get into calling-over after a month,” replied his friend; 


88 


CALLING-OVER 


and they marched into the big school together, and up to the 
farther end, where that illustrious form, the lower fourth, which 
had the honor of East’s patronage for the time being, stood. 

The master mounted into the high desk by the door, and one 
of the praepostors of the week stood by him on the steps, the 
other three marching up and down the middle of the school with 
their canes, calling out “Silence, silence!” The sixth form stood 
close by the door on the left, some thirty in number, mostly 
great big grown men, as Tom thought, surveying them from a 
distance with awe. The fifth form behind them, twice their 
number and not quite so big. These on the left; and on the 
right the lower fifth, shell, ^ and all the junior forms in order; 
while up the middle marched the three praepostors. 

Then the praepostor who stands by the master calls out the 
names, beginning with the sixth form, and as he calls, each 
boy answers “here” to his name, and walks out. Some of the 
sixth stop at the door to turn the whole string of boys into the 
close; it is a great match day, and every boy in the school, will 
he, nill he,^ must be there. The rest of the sixth go forwards 
into the close, to see that no one escapes by any of the side gates. 

To-day, however, being the Schoolhouse match, none of the 
Schoolhouse praepostors stay by the door to watch for truants of 
their side; there is carte blanche to the Schoolhouse fags to go 
where they like: “They trust to our honor,” as East proudly in- 
forms Tom; “ they know very well that no Schoolhouse boy 
would cut the match. If he did, we’d very soon cut him, I 
can tell you.” 

' The master of the week being short-sighted, and the prae- 
postors of the week small and not well up to their work, the 
lower-school boys employ the ten minutes which elapse before 
their names are called in pelting one another vigorously with 
acorns, which fly about in all directions. The small praepostors 
dash in every now and then, and generally chastise some quiet, 
timid boy who is equally afraid of acorns and canes, while the 
principal performers get dexterously out of the way; and so 
^ The lower fourth form. 2 Willingly or unwillingly. 


MARSHALING FOR FOOTBALL 89 

calling-over rolls on somehow, much like the big world, punish- 
ments lighting on wrong shoulders, and matters going generally 
in a queer, cross-grained way, but the end coming somehow, 
which is after all the great point. And now the master of the 
week has finished, and locked up the big school; and the prae- 
postors of the week come out, sweeping the last remnant of the 
school fags — who had been loafing about the corners by the 
fives’ court, in hopes of a chance of bolting — before them into 
the close. 

“Hold the punt-about!” “To the goals!” are the cries, and 
all stray balls are impounded by the authorities; and the whole 
mass of boys moves up towards the two goals, dividing as they 
go into three bodies. That little band on the left, consisting of 
from fifteen to twenty boys, Tom amongst them, who are mak- 
ing for the goal under the Schoolhouse wall are the Schoolhouse 
boys who are not to play-up, and have to stay in goal. The 
larger body moving to the island goal are the schoolboys in a 
like predicament. The great mass in the middle are the players- 
up, both sides mingled together; they are hanging their jackets, 
and all who mean real work, their hats, waistcoats, neck hand- 
kerchiefs, and braces, on the railings round the small trees; and 
there they go by twos and threes up to their respective grounds. 
There is none of the color and tastiness of get-up, you will per- 
ceive, which lends such a life to the present game at Rugby, 
making the dullest and worst fought match a pretty sight. 
Now each house has its own uniform of cap and jersey, of some 
lively color; but at the time we are speaking of, plush caps have 
not yet come in, or uniforms of any sort, except the Schoolhouse 
white trousers, which are abominably cold to-day: let us get to 
work, bare-headed and girded with our plain leather straps — 
but we mean business, gentlemen. 

And now that the two sides have fairly sundered, and each 
occupies its own ground and we get a good look at them, what 
absurdity is this? You don’t mean to say that those fifty or 
sixty boys in white trousers, many of them quite small, are 
going to play that huge mass opposite? Indeed I do, gentle- 


go OLD BROOKES GENERALSHIP 

men; they’re going to try at any rate, and won’t make such a bad 
fight of it either, mark my word; for hasn’t old Brooke won the 
toss, with his lucky half-penny, and got choice of goals and 
kick-off? The new ball you may see lie there quite by itself, in 
the middle, pointing towards the school or island goal; in another 
minute it will be well on its way there. Use that minute in re- 
marking how the Schoolhouse side is drilled. You will see in the 
first place, that the sixth-form boy, who has the charge of goal, 
has spread his force (the goal keepers) so as to occupy the whole 
space behind the goal posts, at distances of about five yards 
apart; a safe and well kept goal is the foundation of all good 
play. Old Brooke is talking to the captain of quarters; and now 
he moves away; see how that youngster spreads his men (the 
light brigade) carefully over the ground, halfway between 
their own goal and the body of their own players-up (the heavy 
brigade). These again play in several bodies; there is young 
Brooke and the bulldogs — mark them well — they are the “fight- 
ing brigade,” the “ die-hards,” larking about at leapfrog to keep 
themselves warm, and playing tricks on one another. And on 
each side of old Brooke, who is now standing in the middle of 
the ground and just going to kick off, you see a separate wing 
of players-up, each with a boy of acknowledged prowess to 
look to — here Warner and there Hedge; but over all is old 
Brooke, absolute as he of Russia, but wisely and bravely ruling 
over willing and worshiping subjects, a true football king. His 
face is earnest and careful as he glances a last time over his 
array, but full of pluck and hope, the sort of look I hope to see 
in my general when I go out to fight. 

The school side is not organized in the same way. The goal 
keepers are all in lumps, anyhow and nohow; you can’t distin- 
guish between the players-up and the boys in quarters, and there 
is divided leadership; but with such odds in strength and weight 
it must take more than that to hinder them from winning; and 
so their leaders seem to think, for they let the players-up man- 
age themselves. 

But now look, there is a slight move forward of the School- 


A SCRUMMAGE 


91 

house wings; a shout of “Are you ready?” and loud affirmative 
reply. Old Brooke takes half a dozen quick steps, and away 
goes the ball spinning towards the school goal; seventy yards be- 
fore it touches ground, and at no point above twelve or fifteen 
feet high, a model kick-off; and the Schoolhouse cheer and rush 
on; the ball is returned, and they meet it and drive it back 
amongst the masses of the school already in motion. Then the 
two sides close, and you can see nothing for minutes but a sway- 
ing crowd of boys, at one point violently agitated. That is 
where the ball is, and there are the keen players to be met, and 
the glory and the hard knocks to be got; you hear the dull thud 
of the ball, and the shouts of “Off your side,” “Down with 
him,” “Put him over,” “Bravo.” This is what we call a 
scrummage, gentlemen, and the first scrummage in a School- 
house match was no joke in the consulship of Plancus.” 

But see! it has broken; the ball is driven out on the School- 
house side, and a rush of the school carries it past the School- 
house players-up. “Look out in quarters,” Brooke’s and 
twenty other voices ring out; no need to call, though, the 
Schoolhouse captain of quarters has caught it on the bound, 
dodges the foremost schoolboys, who are heading the rush, and 
sends it back with a good drop-kick well into the enemy’s 
country. And then follows rush upon rush, and scrummage 
upon scrummage, the ball now driven through into the School- 
house quarters, and now into the school goal; for the School- 
house have not lost the advantage which the kick-off and a 
slight wind gave them at the outset, and are slightly “pen- 
ning” their adversaries. You say you don’t see much in it all; 
nothing but a struggling mass of boys, and a leather ball, which 
seems to excite them all to great fury, as a red rag does a bull. 
My dear sir, a battle would look much the same to you, except 
that the boys would be men, and the balls iron; but a battle 
would be worth your looking at for all that, and so is a football 
match. You can’t be expected to appreciate the delicate 
strokes of play, the turns by which a game is lost and won— 
it takes an old player to do that; but the broad philosophy of 


HOW TO GO IN 


92 

football you can understand if you will. Come along with me a 
little nearer, and let us consider it together. 

The ball has just fallen again where the two sides are thickest 
and they close rapidly around it in a scrummage; it must be 
driven through now by force or skill, till it flies out on one 
side or the other. Look how differently the boys face it! Here 
come two of the bulldogs, bursting through the outsiders; in 
they go, straight to the heart of the scrummage, bent on driv- 
ing that ball out on the opposite side. This is what they mean 
to do. My sons, my sons! you are too hot; you have gone past 
the ball, and must struggle now right through the scrummage, 
and get round and back again to your own side, before you can be 
of any further use. Here comes young Brooke; he goes in as 
straight as you, but keeps his head, and backs and bends, hold- 
ing himself still behind the ball, and driving it furiously when he 
gets the chance. Take a leaf out of his book, you young 
chargers. Here come Speedicut, and Flashman, the School- 
house bully, with shouts and great action. Won’t you two 
come up to young Brooke, after locking-up, by the Schoolhouse 
fire, with “Old fellow, wasn’t that just a splendid scrummage by 
the three trees!” But he knows you, and so do we. You don’t 
really want to drive that ball through that scrummage, chancing 
all hurt for the glory of the Schoolhouse — but to make us think 
that’s what you want — a vastly different thing; and fellows of 
your kidney will never go through piore than the skirts of a 
scrummage, where it’s all push and no kicking. We respect 
boys who keep out of it, and don’t sham going in; but you — we 
had rather not say what we think of you. 

Then the boys who are bending and watching on the outside, 
mark them — they are most useful players, the dodgers; who seize 
on the ball the moment it rolls out from amongst the chargers, 
and away with it across to the opposite goal; they seldom go 
into the scrummage, but must have more coolness than, the 
chargers: as endless as are boys’ characters, so are their ways of 
facing or not facing a scrummage at football. 

Three quarters of an hour are gone; first winds are failing. 


YOUNG BROOKES RUSH 


93 

and weight and numbers beginning to tell. Yard by yard the 
Schoolhouse have been driven back, contesting every inch of 
ground. The bulldogs are the color of mother earth from shoul- 
der to ankle, except young Brooke, who has a marvelous knack 
of keeping his legs. The Schoolhouse are being penned in their 
turn, and now the ball is behind their goal, under the Doctor’s 
wall. The Doctor and some of his family are there looking on 
and seem as anxious as any boy for the success of the School- 
house. We get a minute’s breathing time before old Brooke 
kicks out, and he gives the word to play strongly for touch, by 
the three trees. Away goes the ball, and the bulldogs after it, 
and in another minute there is shout of “In touch,” “Our ball.” 
Now’s your time, old Brooke, while your men are still fresh. He 
stands with the ball in his hand, while the two sides form in deep 
lines opposite one another: he must strike it straight out be- 
tween them. The lines are thickest close to him, but young 
Brooke and two or three of his men are shifting up further, where 
the opposite line is weak. Old Brooke strikes it out straight and 
strong, and it falls opposite his brother. Hurra! that rush has 
taken it right through the school line, and away past the three 
trees, far into their quarters and young Brooke and the bull- 
dogs are close upon it. The school leaders rush back shouting, 
“Look out in goal,” and strain every nerve to catch him, but 
they are after the fleetest foot in Rugby. There they go straight 
for the school goal posts, quarters scattering before them. One 
after another the bulldogs go down, but young Brooke holds on. 
“He is down.” No! a long stagger, but the danger is past; 
that was the shock of Crew, the most dangerous of dodgers. 
And now he is close to the school goal, the ball not three yards 
before him. There is a hurried rush of the school fags to the 
spot, but no one throws himself on the ball, the only chance, 
and young Brooke has touched it right under the school goal 
posts. 

The school leaders come up furious, and administer toco ^ to 
the wretched fags nearest at hand; they may well be angry, for 

1 Blows. 


CRAB JONES 


94 

it is all Lombard Street ^ to a china orange that the Schoolhouse 
kick a goal with the ball touched in such a good place. Old 
Brooke of course will kick it out, but who shall catch and place 
it? Call Crab Jones. Here he comes, sauntering along with a 
straw in his mouth, the queerest, coolest fish in Rugby; if he 
were tumbled into the moon this minute, he would just pick 
himself up without taking his hands out of his pockets or turn- 
ing a hair. But it is a moment when the boldest charger’s heart, 
beats quick. Old Brooke stands with the ball under his arm 
motioning the school back; he will not kick out till they are all 
in goal, behind the posts; they are all edging forwards, inch by 
inch, to get nearer for the rush at Crab Jones, who stands there 
in front of old Brooke to catch the ball. If they reach and de- 
stroy him before he catches, the danger is over; and with one and 
the same rush they will carry it right away to the Schoolhouse 
goal. Fond hope ! it is kicked out and caught beautifully. Crab 
strikes his heel into the ground, to mark the spot where the ball 
was caught, beyond which the school line may not advance; 
but there they stand, five deep, ready to rush the moment the 
ball touches the ground. Take plenty of room! don’t give the 
rush a chance of reaching you! place it true and steady! Trust 
Crab Jones — he has made a small hole with his heel for the ball 
to lie on, by which he is resting on one knee, with his eye on old 
Brooke. “ Now !” Crab places the ball at the word, old Brooke 
kicks, and it rises slowly and truly as the school rush forward. 

Then a moment’s pause, while both sides look up at the spin- 
ning ball. There it flies, straight between the two posts, some 
five feet above the cross bar, an unquestioned goal; and a shout 
of real genuine joy rings out from the Schoolhouse players-up, 
and a faint echo of it comes over the close from the goal keepers 
under the Doctor’s wall. A goal in the first hour — such a thing 
hasn’t been done in the Schoolhouse match this five years. 

“Over!” is the cry; the two sides change goals, and the School- 
house goal keepers come threading their way across through the 
masses of the school; the most openly triumphant of them, 

1 The London street where the great banks are located. 


GRIFFITH’S BASKETS 


95 

amongst whom is Tom, a Schoolhouse boy of two hours’ stand- 
ing, getting their ears boxed in the transit. Tom indeed is 
excited beyond measure, and it is all the sixth-form boy, kindest 
and safest of goal keepers, has been able to do, to keep him from 
rushing out whenever the ball has been near their goal. So he 
holds him by his side, and instructs him in the science of touch- 
ing. 

At this moment Griffith, the itinerant vender of oranges from 
Hill Morton, enters the close with his heavy baskets; there is a 
rush of small boys upon the little pale-faced man, the two sides 
mingling together, subdued by the great Goddess Thirst, like 
the English and French by the streams in the Pyrenees. The 
leaders are past oranges and apples, but some of them visit 
their coats, and apply innocent looking ginger-beer bottles to 
their mouths. It is no ginger-beer, though, I fear, and will do 
you no good. One short mad rush, and then a stitch in the side, 
and no more honest play; that’s what comes of those bottles. 

But now Griffith’s baskets are empty, the ball is placed again 
midway, and the School are going to kick off. Their leaders 
have sent their lumber into goal, and rated the rest soundly, and 
one hundred and twenty picked players-up are there, bent on 
retrieving the game. They are to keep the ball in front of the 
Schoolhouse goal, and then to drive it in by sheer strength and 
weight. They mean heavy play and no mistake, and so old 
Brooke sees; and places Crab Jones in quarters just before the 
goal, with four picked players, who are to keep the ball away to 
the sides, where a try at goal, if obtained, will be less dangerous 
than in front. He himself, and Warner and Hedge, who have 
saved themselves till now, will lead the charges. 

“Are you ready?” “Yes.” And away comes the ball kicked 
high in the air, to give the school time to rush and catch it as it 
falls. And here they are amongst us. Meet them like English- 
men, you Schoolhouse boys, and charge them home. Now is 
the time to show what mettle is in you — and there shall be a 
warm seat by the hall fire, and honor, and lots of bottled beer 
to-night, for him who does his duty in the next half hour. And 


EAST’S CHARGE 


96 

they are well met. Again and again the cloud of their players- 
up gathers before our goal, and comes threatening on, and 
Warner or Hedge, with young Brooke and the relics of the bull- 
dogs, break through and carry the ball back; and old Brooke 
ranges the field like Job’s war horse, ^ the thickest scrummage 
parts asunder before his rush, like the waves before a clipper’s 
bows; his cheery voice rings over the field, and his eye is every- 
where. And if these miss the ball, and it rolls dangerously in 
front of our goal. Crab Jones and his men have seized it and sent 
it away towards the sides with the unerring drop-kick. This is 
worth living for; the whole sum of schoolboy existence gathered 
up into one straining, struggling half hour, a half hour worth a 
year of common life. 

The quarter to five has struck, and the play slackens for a 
minute before goal; but there is Crew, the artful dodger, driving 
the ball in behind our goal, on the island side, where our quarters 
are weakest. Is there no one to meet him? Yes! look at little 
East! the ball is just at equal distances between the two, and they 
rush together, the young man of seventeen and the boy of 
twelve, and kick it at the same moment. Crew passes on with- 
out a stagger; East is hurled forward by the shock, and plunges 
on his shoulder, as if he would bury himself in the ground; but 
the ball rises straight into the air, and falls behind Crew’s back, 
while the “bravos” of the Schoolhouse attest the pluckiest 
charge of all that hard-fought day. Warner picks East up lame 
and half stunned, and he hobbles back into goal, conscious of 
having played the man. 

And now the last minutes are come, and the school gather for 
their last rush, every boy of the hundred and twenty who has 
a run left in him. Reckless of the defense of their own goal, 
on they come across the level big-side ground, the ball well down 
amongst them, straight for our goal, like the column of the Old 
Guard” up the slope at Waterloo. All former charges have 
been child’s play to this, Warner and Hedge have met them, 
but still on they come. The bull dogs rush in for the last time; 

^SGeJob, XXXIX, 19-25. 


THE LAST RUSH 


97 

they are hurled over or carried back, striving hand, foot, and 
eyelids. Old Brooke comes sweeping round the skirts of the 
play, and turning short round, picks out the very he'art of the 
scrummage, and plunges in. It wavers for a moment — he has 
the ball! No, it has passed him, and his voice rings out clear 
over the advancing tide, “Look out in goal.” Crab Jones 
catches it for a moment; but before he can kick, the rush is upon 
him and passes over him; and he picks himself up behind them 
with his straw in his mouth, a little dirtier, but as cool as ever. 

The ball rolls slowly in behind the Schoolhouse goal not three 
yards in front of a dozen of the biggest school players-up. 

There stand the Schoolhouse praepostor, safest of goal keepers, 
and Tom Brown by his side, who has learned his trade by 
this time. Now is your time, Tom. The blood of all the 
Browns is up, and the two rush in together, and throw them- 
selves on the ball, under the very feet of the advancing column; 
the praepostor on his hands and knees arching his back, and Tom 
all along on his face. Over them topple the leaders of the rush, 
shooting over the back of the praepostor, but falling flat on Tom, 
and knocking all the wind out of his small carcass. “Our 
ball,” says the praepostor, rising with his prize, “but get up 
there, there’s a little fellow under you.” They are hauled and 
roll off him, and Tom is discovered a motionless body. 

Old Brooke picks him up. “Stand back, give him air,” he 
says; and then feeling his limbs, adds, “No bones broken. 
How do you feel, young un? ” 

“Ha-ha,” gasps Tom, as his wind comes back, “pretty well, 
thank you — all right.” 

“Who is he? ” says Brooke. 

“Oh, it’s Brown; he’s a new boy; I know him,” says East, 
coming up. 

“Well, he is a plucky youngster, and will make a player,” says 
Brooke. 

And five o’clock strikes. “No side ” ^ is called, and the first 
day of the Schoolhouse match is over. 

1 A tie game. 


AFTER THE MATCH 


98 


CHAPTER VI 

AFTER THE MATCH 

“Some food we had.” — Shakespeare. 
irbros dSi/s, ^ — Theocritus, Idyls. 

As the boys scattered away from the ground, and East leaning 
on Tom’s arm and limping along, was beginning to consider 
what luxury they should go and buy for tea to celebrate that 
glorious victory, the two Brookes came striding by. Old 
Brooke caught sight of East, and stopped; put his hand kindly 
on his shoulder and said, “Bravo, youngster, you played fa- 
mously; not much the matter, I hope? ” 

“No, nothing at all,” said East, “only a little twist from that 
charge.” 

“Well, mind and get all right for next Saturday”; and the 
leader passed on, leaving East better for those few words than 
all the opodeldoc ^ in England would have made him, and Tom 
ready to give one of his ears for as much notice. Ah! light 
words of those whom we love and honor, what a power ye are, 
and how carelessly wielded by those who can use you! Surely 
for these things also God will ask an account. 

“Tea’s directly after locking-up, you see,” said East, hobbling 
along as fast as he could, “so you come along down to Sally 
Harrowell’s; that’s our Schoolhouse tuck shop ^ — she bakes such 
stunning murphies, we’ll have a penn’orth each for tea; come 
along, or they’ll all be gone.” 

Tom’s new purse and money burned in his pocket; he wondered 
as they toddled through the quadrangle and along the street, 
whether East would be insulted if he suggested further ex- 
travagance, as he had not sufficient faith in a pennyworth of 
potatoes. At last he blurted out, — 

^ Sweet was the feast. 

® A shop where sweetmeats are sold. 


2 A liniment. 


CFXEBRATING THE VICTORY 99 

“I say, East, can’t we get something else besides potatoes? 
I’ve got lots of money, you know.” 

“Bless us, yes, I forgot,” said East, “you’ve only just come. 
You see all my tin’s been gone this twelve weeks, it hardly ever 
lasts beyond the first fortnight; and our allowances were all 
stopped this morning for broken windows, so I haven’t got a 
penny. I’ve got a tick at Sally’s, of course; but then I hate 
running it high, you see, towards the end of the half, ’cause one 
has to shell out for it all directly one comes back, and that’s a 
bore.” 

Tom didn’t understand much of this talk, but seized on the 
fact that East had no money, and was denying himseK some 
little pet luxury in consequence. “Well, what shall I buy?” 
said he; “I’m uncommon hungry.” 

“I say,” said East, stopping to look at him and rest his leg, 
“you’re a trump, Brown. I’ll do the same by you next half. 
Let’s have a pound of sausages, then; that’s the best grub for 
tea I know of.” 

“Very well,” said Tom, as pleased as possible; “where do 
they sell them? ” 

“Oh, over here, just opposite”; and they crossed the street 
and walked into the cleanest little front room of a small house, 
half parlor, half shop, and bought a pound of most particular 
sausages; East talking pleasantly to Mrs. Porter while she put 
them in paper, and Tom doing the paying part. 

From Porter’s they adjourned to Sally Harrowell’s, where 
they found a lot of Schoolhouse boys waiting for the roast pota- 
toes, and relating their own exploits in the day’s match at the 
top of their voices. The street opened at once into Sally’s 
kitchen, a. low brick-floored room, with large recess for fire, 
and chimney-corner seats. Poor little Sally, the most good- 
natured and much enduring of womankind, was bustling about 
with a napkin in her hand, from her own oven to those of the 
neighbors’ cottages, up the yard at the back of the house. 
Stumps, her husband, a short, easy-going shoemaker, with a 
beery humorous eye and ponderous calves, who lived mostly 


lOO 


HARROWELUS 


on his wife’s earnings, stood in a corner of the room, ex- 
changing shots of the roughest description of repartee with 
every boy in turn. “Stumps, you lout, you’ve had too much 
beer again to-day.” “’Twasn’t of your paying for, then.” 
— “Stumps’s calves are running down into his ankles, they want 
to get to grass.” “Better be doing that than gone altogether 
like yours,” etc., etc. Very poor stuff it was, but it served to 
make time pass; and every now and then Sally arrived in the 
middle with a smoking tin of potatoes, which was cleared off in a 
few seconds, each boy as he seized his lot running off to the 
house with “Put me down two-penn’orth, Sally”; “Put down 
three-penn’orth between me and Davis,” etc. How she ever 
kept the accounts so straight as she did, in her head and on her 
slate, was a perfect wonder. 

East and Tom got served at last, and started back for the 
Schoolhouse just as the locking-up bell began to ring; East on 
the way recounting the life and adventures of Stumps, who 
was a character. Amongst his other avocations,^ he was the 
hind carrier of a sedan chair, the last of its race, in which the 
Rugby ladies still went out to tea, and in which, when he was 
fairly harnessed and carrying a load, it was the delight of small 
and mischievous boys to follow him and whip his calves. This 
was too much for the temper even of Stumps, and he would pur- 
sue his tormentors in a vindictive and apoplectic manner when 
released, but was easily pacified by twopence to buy beer with. 

The lower-school boys of the Schoolhouse, some fifteen in 
number, had tea in the lower-fifth school, and were presided 
over by the old verger or head porter. Each boy had a quarter 
of a loaf of bread and a pat of butter, and as much tea as he 
pleased; and there was scarcely one who didn’t add to this some 
further luxury, such as baked potatoes, a herring, sprats, or 
something of the sort; but few, at this period of the half year, 
could live up to a pound of Porter’s sausages, and East was in 
great magnificence upon the strength of theirs. He had pro- 
duced a toasting fork from his study, and set Tom to toast the 
1 What is the difference between “avocation” and “vocation”? 


SINGING 


lOI 


sausages, while he mounted guard over their butter and po- 
tatoes; ‘‘ ’cause,” as he explained, “you’re a new boy, and they’ll 
play you some trick and get our butter, but you can toast just 
as well as I.” So Tom, in the midst of three or four more urchins 
similarly employed, toasted his face and the sausages at the 
same time before the huge fire, till the latter cracked; when East 
from his watchtower shouted that they were done, and then the 
feast proceeded, and the festive cups of tea were filled and 
emptied, and Tom imparted of the sausages in small bits to 
many neighbors, and thought he had never tasted such good 
potatoes or seen such jolly boys. They on their parts waived 
all ceremony, and pegged away at the sausages and potatoes, 
and remembering Tom’s performance in goal, voted East’s new 
crony a brick. After tea, and while the things were being 
cleared away, they gathered round the fire, and the talk on the 
match still went on; and those who had them to show, pulled up 
their trousers and showed the hacks they had received in the 
good cause. 

They were soon, however, all turned out of the school, and 
East conducted Tom up to his bedroom, that he might get on 
clean things and wash himself before singing. 

“What’s singing?” said Tom, taking his head out of the basin, 
where he had been plunging it in cold water. 

“Well, you are jolly green,” answered his friend from a neigh- 
boring basin. “Why, the last six Saturdays of every half we 
sing, of course; and this is the first of them. No first lesson to 
do, you know, and lie in bed to-morrow morning.” 

“But who sings?” 

“Why, everybody, of course; you’ll see soon enough. We be- 
gin directly after supper, and sing till bedtime. It ain’t such 
good fun now, though, as in the summer half, ’cause then we sing 
in the little fives’ court, under the library, you know. We take 
out tables, and the big boys sit round and drink beer, double 
allowance on Saturday nights; and we cut about the quad- 
rangle between the songs, and it looks like a lot of robbers in a 
cave. And the louts come and pound at the great gates, and 


102 


TOM^S PERFORMANCE 


we pound back again, and shout at them. But this half we 
only sing in the hall. Come along down to my study.’’ 

Their principal employment in the study was to clear out 
East’s table, removing the drawers and ornaments and table- 
cloth — ^for he lived in the bottom passage, and his table was in 
requisition for the singing. 

Supper came in due course at seven o’clock, consisting of 
bread and cheese and beer, which was all saved for the singing; 
and directly afterwards the fags went to work to prepare the 
hall. The Schoolhouse hall, as has been said, is a great long 
high room, with two large fires on one side, and two large iron- 
bound tables, one running down the middle, and the other along 
the wall opposite the fireplaces. Around the upper fire the fags 
placed the tables in the form of a horseshoe, and upon them the 
jugs with the Saturday night’s allowance of beer. Then the big 
boys used to drop in and take their seats, bringing with them 
bottled beer and songbooks; for although they all knew the 
songs by heart, it was the thing to have an old manuscript 
book descended from some departed hero, in which they were all 
carefully written out. 

The sixth-form boys had not yet appeared; so to fill up the 
gap, an interesting and time-honored ceremony was gone 
through. Each new boy was placed on the table in turn, and 
made to sing a solo, under the penalty of drinking a large mug 
of salt and water if he resisted or broke down. However, the 
new boys all sing like nightingales to-night, and the salt water 
is not in requisition; Tom, as his part, performing the old west- 
country song of ‘‘The Leather BottH” with considerable ap- 
plause. And at the half hour down come the sixth- and fifth- 
form boys, and take their places at the tables, which are filled 
up by the next biggest boys, the rest, for whom there is no 
room at the table, standing round outside. 

The glasses and mugs are filled, and then the fugleman strikes 
up the old sea song,— 

“A wet sheet and a flowing sea, 

And a wind that follows fast,” etc., 


BROOKES HONORS 103 

which is the invariable first song in the Schoolhouse, and all 
seventy voices join in, not mindful of harmony, but bent on 
noise, which they attain decidedly, but the general effect isn’t 
bad. And then follow the “British Grenadiers,” “Billy Tay- 
lor,” “The Siege of Seringapatam,” “Three Jolly Postboys,” 
and other vociferous songs in rapid succession, including the 
“Chesapeake and Shannon,” a song lately introduced in honor 
of old Brooke; and when they come to the words, — 

“ Brave Broke he waved his sword, crying, Now my lads, aboard, 
And we’ll stop their playing Yankee-doodle-dandy oh! ” 

you expect the roof to come down. The sixth and fifth know 
that “brave Broke” of the Shannon was no sort of relation to 
our old Brooke. The fourth form are uncertain in their be- 
lief, but for the most part hold that old Brooke was a midship- 
man then on board his uncle’s ship. And the lower school 
never doubt for a moment that it was our old Brooke who led 
the boarders, in what capacity they care not a straw. During 
the pauses the bottled beer corks fly rapidly, and the talk is fast 
and merry, and the big boys, at least all of them who have a fel- 
low feeling for dry throats, hand their mugs over their shoulders 
to be emptied by the small ones who stand round behind. 

Then Warner, the head of the house, gets up and wants to 
speak, but he can’t, for every boy knows what’s coming; and the 
big boys who sit at the tables pound them and cheer; and the 
small boys who stand behind pound one another, and cheer, and 
rush about the hall cheering. Then silence being made, Warner 
reminds them of the old Schoolhouse custom of drinking the 
healths, on the first night of singing, of those who are going to 
leave at the end of the half. “He sees that they know what 
he is going to say already — (loud cheers) — and so won’t keep 
them, but only ask them to treat the toast as it deserves. It is 
the head of the eleven, the head of big-side football, their leader 
on this glorious day — Pater ^ Brooke!” 

And away goes the pounding and cheering again, becoming 

1 Father. 


BROOKE DISCOURSETH 


104 

deafening when old Brooke gets on his legs; till, a table having 
broken down, and a gallon or so of beer been upset, and all 
throats getting dry, silence ensues, and the hero speaks, leaning 
his hands on the table, and bending a little forwards. No ac- 
tion, no tricks of oratory; plain, strong, and straight, like his 
play. 

“Gentlemen of the Schoolhouse! I am very proud of the 
way in which you have received my name, and I wish I could 
say all I should like in return. But I know I shan’t. How- 
ever, I’ll do the best I can to say what seems to me ought to be 
said by a fellow who’s just going to leave, and who has spent a 
good slice of his life here. Eight years it is, and eight such 
years as I can never hope to have again. So now I hope you’ll 
all listen to me — (loud cheers of “That we will”) — for I’m going 
to talk seriously. You’re bound to listen to me, for what’s the 
use of calling me ‘pater,’ and all that, if you don’t mind what I 
say? And I’m going to talk seriously, because I feel so. It’s 
a jolly time, too, getting to the end of the half, and a goal 
kicked by us first day — (tremendous applause) — after one of the 
hardest and fiercest day’s play I can remember in eight years — 
(frantic shoutings). The school played splendidly, too, I will 
say, and kept it up to the last. That last charge of theirs would 
have carried away a house. I never thought to see anything 
again of old Crab there, except little pieces, when I saw him 
tumbled over by it — (laughter and shouting, and great slap- 
ping on the back of Jones by the boys nearest him). Well, 
but we beat ’em — (cheers). Ay, but why did we beat ’em? 
answer me that — (shouts of “Your play”). Nonsense! ’Twasn’t 
the wind and kick-off, either — that wouldn’t do it. ’Twasn’t 
because we’ve half a dozen of the best players in the school, as 
we have. I wouldn’t change Warner, and Hedge, and Crab, 
and the young un, for any six on their side — (violent cheers). 
But half a dozen fellows can’t keep it up for two hours against 
two hundred. Why is it, then? I’ll tell you what I think. 
It’s because we’ve more reliance on one another, more of a 
house feeling, more fellowship than the school can have. Each 


ON UNION, AND AGAINST BULLYING 105 

of us knows and can depend on his next hand man better — that’s 
why we beat ’em to-day. We’ve union, they’ve division — 
there’s the secret — (cheers). But how’s this to be kept up? 
How’s it to be improved? That’s the question. For I take it, 
we’re all in earnest about beating the school, whatever else we 
care about. I know I’d sooner win two Schoolhouse matches 
running than get the Balliol” scholarship any day — (frantic 
cheers). 

“Now, I’m as proud of the house as any one. I believe it’s 
the best house in the school, out-and-out — (cheers). But it’s 
a long way from what I want to see it. First, there’s a deal of 
bullying going on. I know it well. I don’t pry about and in- 
terfere; that only makes it more underhand, and encourages 
the small boys to come to us with their fingers in their eyes 
telling tales, and so we should be worse off than ever. It’s very 
little kindness for the sixth to meddle generally — ^you young- 
sters, mind that. You’ll be all the better football players for 
learning to stand it, and to take your own parts, and fight it 
through. But depend on it, there’s nothing breaks up a house 
like buUying. Bullies are cowards, and one coward makes 
many; so good-by to the Schoolhouse match if bullying gets 
ahead here. (Loud applause from the small boys, who look 
meaningly at Flashman and other boys at the tables.) Then 
there’s fuddling about in the public house, and drinking bad 
spirits and punch, and such rot-gut stuff. That won’t make 
good drop-kicks or chargers of you, take my word for it. You 
get plenty of good beer here, and that’s enough for you; and 
drinking isn’t fine or manly, whatever some of you may think 
of it. 

“One other thing I must have a word about. A lot of you 
think and say, for I’ve heard you, 'There’s this new Doctor 
hasn’t been here so long as some of us, and he’s changing all the 
old customs. Rugby, and the Schoolhouse especially, is going 
to the dogs. Stand up for the good old ways, and down with 
the Doctor! ’ Now I’m as fond of old Rugby customs and ways 
as any of you, and I’ve been here longer than any of you, and 


io6 BROOKE STANDETH UP FOR THE DOCTOR 

I’ll give you a word of advice in time, for I shouldn’t like to 
see any of you getting sacked. 'Down with the Doctor’ ’s 
easier said than done. You’ll find him pretty tight on his perch, 
I take it, and an awkwardish customer to handle in that line. 
Besides, now,- what customs has he put down? There was the 
good old custom of taking the linchpins out of the farmers’ and 
bagmen’s gigs at the fairs, and a cowardly blackguard custom it 
was. We all know what came of it, and no wonder the Doctor 
objected to it. But, come now, any of you, name a custom that 
he has put down.” 

The hounds,” calls out a fifth-form boy, clad in a green 
cutaway with brass buttons and cord trousers, the leader of the 
sporting interest, and reputed a great rider and keen hand 
generally. 

“ Well, we had six or seven mangey harriers and beagles be- 
longing to the house. I’ll allow, and had had them for years, and 
that the Doctor put them down. But what good ever came of 
them? Only rows with all the keepers for ten miles round; and 
big-side hare and hounds is better fun ten times over. What 
else?” 

No answer. 

“Well, I won’t go on. Think it over for yourselves; you’ll 
find, I believe, that he don’t meddle with any one that’s worth 
keeping. And mind now, I say again, look out for squalls, if 
you will go your own way, and that way ain’t the Doctor’s, for 
it’ll lead to grief. You all know that I’m not the fellow to back 
a master through thick and thin. If I saw him stopping foot- 
ball, or cricket, or bathing, or sparring, I’d be as ready as any 
fellow to stand up about it. But he don’t — he encourages them; 
didn’t you see him out to-day for half an hour watching us?” 
(loud cheers for the Doctor); “and he’s a strong true man, and 
a wise one too, and a public school man, too.” (Cheers.) 
“And so let’s stick to him, and talk no more rot, and drink his 
health as the head of the house.” (Loud cheers.) “And now 
I’ve done blowing up, and very glad I am to have done. But it’s 
a solemn thing to be thinking of leaving a place which one has 


OLD BROOKE^S TOAST 107 

lived in and loved for eight years; and if one can say a word for 
the good of the old house at such a time, why, it should be said, 
whether bitter or sweet. If I hadn’t been proud of the house 
and you — ay, no one knows how proud — I shouldn’t be blowing 
you up. And now let’s get to singing. But before I sit down I 
must give you a toast to be drunk with three-times-three and all 
the honors. It’s a toast which I hope every one of us, wherever 
he may go hereafter, will never fail to drink when he thinks 
of the brave bright days of his boyhood. It’s a toast which 
should bind us all together, and to those who’ve gone before, 
and who’ll come after us here. It is the dear old Schoolhouse — 
the best house of the best school in England!” 

My dear boys, old and young, you who have belonged, or do 
belong, to other schools and other houses, don’t begin throwing 
my poor little book about the room, and abusing me and it, 
and vowing you’ll read no more when you get to this point. I 
allow you’ve provocation for it. But come now — would you, 
any of you, give a fig for a fellow who didn’t believe in, and 
stand up for, his own house and his own school? You know you 
wouldn’t. Then don’t object to my cracking up the old School- 
house, Rugby. Haven’t I a right to do it, when I’m taking all 
the trouble of writing this true history for all of your benefits? 
If you ain’t satisfied, go and write the history of your own 
houses in your own times, and say all you know for your own 
schools and houses, provided it’s true, and I’ll read it without 
abusing you. 

The last few words hit the audience in their weakest place; 
they had been not altogether enthusiastic at several parts of old 
Brooke’s speech; but ‘The best house of the best school in Eng- 
land” was too much for them all, and carried even the sporting 
and drinking interests off their legs into rapturous applause, 
and (it is to be hoped) resolutions to lead a hew life and remem- 
ber old Brooke’s words; which, however, they didn’t altogether 
do, as will appear hereafter. 

But it required all old Brooke’s popularity to carry down parts 
of his speech, especially that relating to the Doctor. For there 


SCHOOL IDOLATRIES 


io8 

are no such bigoted holders by established forms and customs, 
be they never so foolish or meaningless, as English schoolboys, 
at least as the schoolboy of our generation. We magnified into 
heroes every boy who had left, and looked upon him with awe 
and reverence when he revisited the place a year or so after- 
wards, on his way to or from Oxford or Cambridge; and happy 
was the boy who remembered him, and sure of an audience as he 
expounded what he used to do and say, though it were sad 
enough stuff to make angels, not to say headmasters weep. 

We looked upon every trumpery little custom and habit which 
had obtained in the school as though it had been a law of the 
Medes and Persians, and regarded the infringement or variation 
of it as a sort of sacrilege. And the Doctor, than whom no man 
or boy had a stronger liking for old school customs which were 
good and sensible, had, as has already been hinted, come into 
most decided collision with several which were neither the one 
nor the other. And as old Brooke had said, when he came into 
collision with boys or customs, there was nothing for them but 
to give in or take themselves off; because what he said had to be 
done, and no mistake about it. And this was beginning to be 
pretty clearly understood; the boys felt that there was a strong 
man over them, who would have things his own way, and hadn’t 
yet learned that he was a wise and loving man also. His per- 
sonal character and influence had not had time to make itself 
felt, except by a very few of the bigger boys with whom he 
came more directly in contact; and he was looked upon with 
great fear and dislike by the great majority even of his own 
house. For he had found school and schoolhouse in a state 
of monstrous license and misrule, and was still employed in 
the necessary but unpopular work of setting up order with a 
strong hand. 

However, as has been said, old Brooke triumphed, and the 
boys cheered him, and then the Doctor. And then more songs 
came, and the healths of the other boys about to leave, who each 
made a speech, one flowery, another maudlin, a third prosy, 
and so on, which are not necessary to be here recorded. 


BREAK UP OF SINGING log 

Half past nine struck in the middle of the performance of 
^‘Auld Lang Syne,” a most obstreperous proceeding; during 
which there was an immense amount of standing with one foot 
on the table, knocking mugs together and shaking hands, with- 
out which accompaniments it seems impossible for the youth of 
Britain to take part in that famous old song. The under-porter 
of the Schoolhouse entered during the performance, bearing 
five or six long wooden candlesticks, with lighted dips in them, 
which he proceeded to stick into their holes in such part of 
the great tables as he could get at; and then stood outside 
the ring till the end of the song, when he was hailed with 
shouts. 

“Bill, you old muff, the half hour hasn’t struck.” 

“Here, Bill, drink some cocktail,” “Sing us a song, old boy,” 
“Don’t you wish you may get the table?” Bill drank the prof- 
fered cocktail not unwillingly, and putting down the empty 
glass, remonstrated, “Now, gentlemen, there’s only ten minutes 
to prayers, and we must get the hall straight.” 

Shouts of “No, no!” and a violent effort to strike up “Billy 
Taylor” for the third time. Bill looked appealingly to old 
Brooke, who got up and stopped the noise. “Now, then, lend a 
hand, you youngsters, and get the tables back, clear away the 
jugs and glasses. Bill’s right. Open the windows, Warner.” 
The boy addressed, who sat by the long ropes, proceeded to pull 
up the great windows, and let in a clear fresh rush of night air, 
which made the candles flicker and gutter, and the fires roar. 
The circle broke up, each collaring his own jug, glass, and song- 
book; Bill pounced on the big table, and began to rattle it away 
to its place outside the buttery^ door. The lower passage boys 
carried off their small tables, aided by their friends, while above 
all, standing on the great hall table, a knot of untiring sons of 
harmony made night doleful by a prolonged performance of 
“God save the King.” His Majesty King William IV then 
reigned over us, a monarch deservedly popular amongst the 
boys addicted to melody, to whom he was chiefly known from 
1 The room where refreshments were dispensed. 


no 


LAST LOYAL STRAINS 


the beginning of that excellent, if slightly vulgar, song in which 
they much delighted, — 

“ Come, neighbors all, both great and small, 

Perform your duties here. 

And loudly sing ‘ live Billy our king,’ 

For bating the tax upon beer.” 

Others of the more learned in songs also celebrated his praises in 
a sort of ballad, which I take to have been written by some Irish 
loyalist. I have forgotten all but the chorus, which ran, — 

“ God save our good King William, be his name forever blest. 

He’s the father of all his people, and the guardian of all the rest.” 

In troth we were loyal subjects in those days, in a rough way. 
I trust that our successors make as much of her present Majesty,^ 
and, having regard to the greater refinement of the times, have 
adopted or written other songs equally hearty, but more civil- 
ized, in her honor. 

Then the quarter to ten struck, and the prayer bell rang. 
The sixth- and fifth-form boys ranged themselves in their school 
order along the wall, on either side of the great fires, the middle- 
fifth and upper-school boys round the long table in the middle 
of the hall, and the lower-school boys round the upper part of the 
second long table, which ran down the side of the hall farthest 
from the fires. Here Tom found himself at the bottom of all, in a 
state of mind and body not at all fit for prayers, as he thought; 
and so tried hard to make himself serious, but couldn’t, for 
the life of him, do anything but repeat in his head the choruses 
of some of the songs, and stare at all the boys opposite, wonder- 
ing at the brilliancy of their waistcoats, and speculating what 
sort of fellows they were. The steps of the head porter are 
heard on the stairs, and a light gleams at the door. “Hush!” 
from the fifth-form boys who stand there, and then in strides 
the Doctor, cap on head, book in one hand, and gathering up his 
gown in the other. He walks up the middle, and takes his post 
by Warner, who begins calling over the names. The Doctor 
takes no notice of anything, but quietly turns over his book and 
^ Queen Victoria. 


PRAYERS 


III 


finds the place, and then stands, cap in hand and finger in book, 
looking straight before his nose. He knows better than any 
one when to look, and when to see nothing; to-night is singing 
night, and there’s been lots of noise and no harm done; nothing 
but beer drunk, and nobody the worse for it, though some of 
them do look hot and excited. So the Doctor sees nothing, but 
fascinates Tom in a horrible manner as he stands there, and reads 
out the Psalm in that deep, ringing, searching voice of his. 
Prayers are over, and Tom still stares open-mouthed after the 
Doctor’s retiring figure, when he feels a pull at his sleeve, and 
turning round, sees East. 

“I say, were you ever tossed in a blanket?” 

‘‘No,” said Tom, “why?” 

“’Cause there’ll be tossing to-night, most likely, before the 
sixth come up to bed. So if you funk,^ you just come along and 
hide, or else they’ll catch you and toss you.” 

“Were you ever tossed? Does it hurt?” inquired Tom. 

“Oh, yes, bless you, a dozen times,” said East, as he hobbled 
along by Tom’s side upstairs. “It don’t hurt unless you fall on 
the floor. But most fellows don’t like it.” 

They stopped at the fireplace in the top passage, where were a 
crowd of small boys whispering together, and evidently unwilling 
to go up into the bedrooms. In a minute, however, a study door 
opened, and a sixth-form boy came out, and off they all scut- 
tled up the stairs, and then noiselessly dispersed to their differ- 
ent rooms. Tom’s heart beat rather quick as he and East 
reached their room, but he had made up his mind. “I shan’t 
hide. East,” said he. 

“Very well, old fellow,” replied East, evidently pleased; 
“no more shall I — they’ll be here for us directly.” 

The room was a great big one with a dozen beds in it, but not 
a boy that Tom could see, except East and himself. East 
pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and then sat on the bottom of 
his bed, whistling and pulling off his boots; Tom followed his 
example. 


1 Feel afraid. 


II2 


FLASHMAN IN HIS GLORY 


A noise and steps are heard in the passage, the door opens, 
and in rush four or five great fifth-form boys, headed by Flash- 
man in his glory. 

Tom and East slept in the farther corner of the room, and were 
not seen at first. 

“Gone to ground, eh?” roared Flashman; “push ’em out then, 
boys! look under the beds and he pulled up the little white 
curtain of the one nearest him. “ Who-o-op,” he roared, pulling 
away at the leg of a small boy, who held on tight to the leg of 
the bed, and sung out lustily for mercy. 

“Here, lend a hand, one of you, and help me pull out this 
howling brute. Hold your tongue, sir, or I’ll kill you.” 

“Oh, please, Flashman, please. Walker, don’t toss me! I’ll 
fag for you. I’ll do anything, only don’t toss me.” 

“You be hanged,” said Flashman, lugging the wretched boy 
along, “ ’t won’t hurt you, — you ! Come along, boys, here he is.” 

“I say, Flashey,” sang out another of the big boys, “drop 
that; you heard what old Pater Brooke said to-night. I’ll be 
hanged if we’ll toss any one against their will — no more bully- 
ing. Let him go, I say.” 

Flashman, with an oath and a kick, released his prey, who 
rushed headlong under his bed again, for fear they should 
change their minds, and crept along underneath the other beds, 
till he got under that of the sixth-form boy, which he knew 
they daren’t disturb. 

“There’s plenty of youngsters don’t care about it,” said 
Walker. “Here, here’s Scud East — you’ll be tossed, won’t you, 
young un?” Scud was East’s nickname, or Black, as we called 
it, gained by his fleetness of foot. 

“Yes,” said East, “if you like, only mind my foot.” 

“And here’s another who didn’t hide. Hullo! new boy; 
what’s your name, sir?” 

“Brown.” 

“Well, Whitey Brown, you don’t mind being tossed?” 

“No,” said Tom, setting his teeth. 

“Come along then, boys,” sang out Walker, and away they 


TOSSING 1 13 

all went, carrying along Tom and East, to the intense relief of 
four or five other small boys, who crept out from under the beds 
and behind them. 

What a trump Scud is! ” said one. “They won’t come back 
here now.” 

“And that new boy, too; he must be a good plucked one.” 

“Ah, wait till he has been tossed on to the floor; see how he’ll 
like it then!” 

Meantime, the procession went down the passage to Num- 
ber 7, the largest room and the scene of tossing, in the middle of 
which was a great open space. Here they joined other parties 
of the bigger boys, each with a captive or two, some willing to 
be tossed, some sullen, and some frightened to death. At 
Walker’s suggestion all who were afraid were let off, in honor of 
Pater Brooke’s speech. 

Then a dozen big boys seized hold of a blanket, dragged from 
one of the beds. “In with Scud, quick, there’s no time to lose.” 
East was chucked into the blanket. “Once, twice, thrice, and 
away”; up he went like a shuttlecock,^ but not quite up to the 
ceiling. 

“Now, boys, with a will,” cried Walker, “once, twice, thrice, 
and away!” This time he went clean up, and kept himself 
from touching the ceiling with his hand, and so again a third 
time, when he was turned out, and up went another boy. And 
then came Tom’s turn. He lay quite still, by East’s advice, 
and didn’t dislike the “once, twice, thrice”; but the ‘‘away” 
wasn’t so pleasant. They were in good wind now, and sent him 
up to the ceiling first time, against which his knees came rather 
sharply. But the moment’s pause before descending was the rub, 
the feeling of utter helplessness, and of leaving his whole inside 
behind him sticking to the ceiling. Tom was very near shout- 
ing to be set down, when he found himself in the blanket, but 
thought of East, and didn’t; and so took his three tosses without 
a kick or a cry, and was called a young trump for his pains. 

1 A cork, stuck with feathers; used in the game of battledore and shuttle- 
cock. 


A BULLY'S REFINEMENTS 


114 

He and East, having earned it, stood now looking on. No 
catastrophe happened, as all the captives were cool hands, and 
didn’t struggle. This didn’t suit Flashman. What your real 
bully likes in tossing is when the boys kick and struggle, or hold 
on to one side of the blanket, and so get pitched bodily on to the 
floor; it’s no fun to him when no one is hurt or frightened. 

“Let’s toss two of them together. Walker,” suggested he. 

“What a cursed bully you are, Flashey!” rejoined the other. 
“Up with another one.” 

And so no two boys were tossed together, the peculiar hard- 
ship of which is, that it’s too much for human nature to lie still 
then and share troubles; and so the wretched pair of small boys 
struggle in the air which shall fall a-top in the descent, to the 
no small risk of both falling out of the blanket, and the huge de- 
light of brutes like Flashman. 

But now there’s a cry that the praepostor of the room is com- 
ing; so the tossing stops, and all scatter to their different rooms; 
and Tom is left to turn in, with the first day’s experience of a 
public school to meditate upon. 

CHAPTER VII 

SETTLING TO THE COLLAR 

“ Says Giles, ‘ ’Tis mortal hard to go, 

But if so be’s I must, 

I means to follow arter he 
As goes hisself the fust.’ ” 

Ballad. 

Everybody, I suppose, knows the dreamy delicious state in 
which one lies, half asleep, half awake, while consciousness be- 
gins to return, after a sound night’s rest in a new place which we 
are glad to be in, following upon a day of unwonted excitement 
and exertion. There are few pleasanter pieces of life. The 
worst of it is that they last such a short time; for, nurse them as 
you will, by lying perfectly passive in mind and body, you can’t 
make more than five minutes or so of them. After which time. 


WAKING 


115 

the stupid, obtrusive, wakeful entity which we call “I,” as im- 
patient as he is stiff-necked, spite of our teeth, will force him- 
self back again, and take possession of us down to our very toes. 

It was in this state that Master Tom lay at half past seven on 
the morning following the day of his arrival, and from his clean 
little white bed watched the movements of Bogle (the generic 
name by which the successive shoeblacks of the Schoolhouse 
were known), as he marched round from bed to bed, collecting 
the dirty shoes and boots, and depositing clean ones in their 
places. 

There he lay, half doubtful as to where exactly in the uni- 
verse he was, but conscious that he had made a step in life which 
he had been anxious to make. It was only just light as he looked 
lazily out of the wide windows, and saw the tops of the great 
elms, and the rooks circling about, and cawing remonstrance 
to the lazy ones of their commonwealth, before starting in a 
body for the neighboring plowed fields. The noise of the room 
door closing behind Bogle, as he made his exit with the shoe 
basket under his arm, roused him thoroughly, and he sat up in 
bed and looked round the room. What in the world could be 
the matter with his shoulders and loins? He felt as if he had 
been severely beaten all down his back, the natural results of 
his performance at his first match. He drew up his knees and 
rested his chin on them, and went over all the events of yester- 
day, rejoicing in his new life, what he had seen of it, and all that 
was to come. 

Presently one or two of the other boys roused themselves, 
and began to sit up and talk to one another in low tones. Then 
East, after a roll or two, came to an anchor, also, and, nodding 
to Tom, began examining his ankle. 

‘‘What a pull,” said he, “that it’s lie-in-bed, for I shall be as 
lame as a tree, I think.” 

It was Sunday morning, and Sunday lectures had not yet 
been established; so that nothing but breakfast intervened be- 
tween bed and eleven o’clock chapel — a gap by no means easy 
to fill up: in fact, though received with the correct amount of 


LIE-IN-BED MORNING 


ii6 

grumbling, the first lecture instituted by the Doctor shortly 
afterwards was a great boon to the school. It was lie-in-bed, 
and no one was in a hurry to get up, especially in rooms 
where the sixth-form boy was a good-tempered fellow, as was 
the case in Tom’s room, and allowed the small boys to talk and 
laugh, and do pretty much what they pleased, so long as they 
didn’t disturb him. His bed was a bigger one than the rest, 
standing in the corner by the fireplace, with washing stand 
and large basin by the side, where he lay in state, with his white 
curtains tucked in so as to form a retiring place: an awful sub- 
ject of contemplation to Tom, who slept nearly opposite, and 
watched the great man rouse himself and take a book from un- 
der his pillow, and begin reading, leaning his head on his hand, 
and turning his back to the room. Soon, however, a noise of 
striving urchins arose, and muttered encouragements from the 
neighboring boys of — “Go to it. Tadpole!” “Now, young 
Green!” “Haul away his blanket!” “Slipper him on the 
hands!” Young Green and little Hall, commonly called Tad- 
pole, from his great black head and thin legs, slept side by side 
far away by the door, and were forever playing one another 
tricks, which usually ended, as on this morning, in open and 
violent collision; and now, unmindful of all order and authority, 
there they were each hauling away at the other’s bedclothes 
with one hand, and with the other, armed with a slipper, be- 
laboring whatever portion of the body of his adversary came 
within reach. 

“Hold that noise, up in the corner,” called out the praepostor, 
sitting up and looking round his curtains; and the Tadpole and 
young Green sank down into their disordered beds, and then, 
looking at his watch, added, “Hullo, past eight! — whose turn 
for hot water?” 

(Where the praepostor was particular in his ablutions, the fags 
in his room had to descend in turn to the kitchen, and beg or 
steal hot water for him; and often the custom extended further, 
and two boys went down every morning to get a supply for the 
whole room.) 


GETTING UP 


I17 

“East’s and Tadpole’s,” answered the senior fag, who kept 
the rota. 

“ I can’t go,” said East; “I’m dead lame.” 

“Well, be quick, some of you, that’s all,” said the great man, 
as he turned out of bed, and, putting on his slippers, went out 
into the great passage which runs the whole length of the bed- 
rooms, to get his Sunday habiliments out of his portmanteau. 

“Let me go for you,” said Tom to East, “ I should like it.” 

“Well, thank’ee, that’s a good fellow. Just pull on your 
trousers, and take your jug and mine. Tadpole will show you 
the way.” 

And so Tom and the Tadpole, in nightshirts and trousers 
started off downstairs, and through “Thos’s hole,” as the little 
buttery, where candles and beer and bread and cheese were 
served out at night, was called; across the Schoolhouse court, 
down a long passage, and into the kitchen, where, after some 
parley with the stalwart, handsome cook, who declared that she 
had filled a dozen jugs already, they got their hot water, and re- 
turned with all speed and great caution. As it was, they nar- 
rowly escaped capture by some privateers from the fifth-form 
rooms, who were on the lookout for the hot-water convoys, and 
pursued them up to the very door of their room, making them 
spill half their load in the passage. “Better than going down 
again though,” as Tadpole remarked, “as we should have had to 
do, if those beggars had caught us.” 

By the time that the calling-over bell rang, Tom and his new 
comrades were all down, dressed in their best clothes, and he had 
the satisfaction of answering “here” to his name for the first 
time, the praepostor of the week having put it in at the bottom 
of his list. And then came breakfast, and a saunter about the 
close and town with East, whose lameness only became severe 
when any fagging had to be done. And so they whiled away the 
time until morning chapel. 

It was a fine November morning, and the close soon became 
alive with boys of all ages, who sauntered about on the grass, or 
walked round the gravel walk, in parties of two or three. East, 


MORNING CHAPEL 


Ii8 

still doing the cicerone, pointed out all the remarkable characters 
to Tom as they passed: Osbert, who could throw a cricket ball 
from the little-side ground over the rook trees to the Doctor’s 
wall; Gray, who had got the Balliol scholarship, and, what East 
evidently thought of much more importance, a half holiday for 
the school by his success; Thome, who had run ten miles in two 
minutes over the hour; Black, who had held his own against the 
cock ^ of the town in the last row with the louts; and many more 
heroes, who then and there walked about and were worshiped, 
all trace of whom has long since vanished from the scene of 
their fame; and the fourth-form boy who reads their names 
rudely cut out on the old hall tables, or painted upon the big 
side-cupboard (if hall tables and big side-cupboards still exist), 
wonders what manner of boys they were. It will be the same 
with you who wonder, my sons, whatever your prowess may 
be, in cricket, or scholarship, or football. Two or three years, 
more or less, and then the steadily advancing, blessed wave will 
pass over your names as it has passed over ours. Nevertheless, 
play your games and do your work manfully — see only that that 
be done, and let the remembrance of it take care of itself. 

The chapel bell began to ring at a quarter to eleven, and Tom 
got in early and took his place in the lowest row, and watched all 
the other boys come in and take their places, filling row after row; 
and tried to construe the Greek text which was inscribed over 
the door with the slightest possible success, and wondered which 
of the masters, who walked down the chapel and took their seats 
in the exalted boxes at the end, would be his lord. And then 
came the closing of the doors, and the Doctor in his robes and the 
service, which, however, didn’t impress him much, for his feel- 
ing of wonder and curiosity was too strong. And the boy on 
one side of him was scratching his name on the oak paneling in 
front, and he couldn’t help watching to see what the name was, 
and whether it was well scratched; and the boy on the other side 
went to sleep and kept falling against him; and on the whole, 
though many boys even in that part of the school were serious 
^ Champion. 


AFTERNOON CHAPEL 119 

and attentive, the general atmosphere was by no means de- 
votional, and when he got out into the close again, he didn’t 
feel at all comfortable, or as if he had been to church. 

But at afternoon chapel it was quite another thing. He had 
spent the time after dinner in writing home to his mother, and so 
was in a better frame of mind; and his first curiosity was over, 
and he could attend more to the service. As the hymn after 
the prayers was being sung, and the chapel was getting a little 
dark, he was beginning to feel that he had been really wor- 
shiping. And then came that great event in his as in every 
Rugby boy’s life of that day — the first sermon from the Doctor. 

More worthy pens than mine have described that scene: the 
oak pulpit standing out by itself above the school seats; the tall, 
gallant form; the kindling eye; the voice, now soft as the low 
notes of a flute, now clear and stirring as the call of the light in- 
fantry bugle, of him who stood there Sunday after Sunday, wit- 
nessing and pleading for his Lord, the King of righteousness and 
love and glory, with whose spirit he was filled, and in whose 
power he spoke; the long lines of young faces, rising tier above 
tier down the whole length of the chapel, from the little boy’s 
who had just left his mother to the young man’s who was going 
out next week into the great world rejoicing in his strength. It 
was a great and solemn sight, and never more so than at this 
time of year, when the only lights in the chapel were in the pulpit 
and at the seats of the praepostors of the week, and the soft 
twilight stole over the rest of the chapel, deepening into dark- 
ness in the high gallery behind the organ. 

But what was it, after all, which seized and held these 
three hundred boys, dragging them out of themselves, willing or 
unwilling, for twenty minutes, on Sunday afternoons? True, 
there always were boys scattered up and down the school who 
in heart and head were worthy to hear and able to carry away 
the deepest and wisest words there spoken. But these were a 
minority always, generally a very small one, often so small a one 
as to be countable on the fingers of your hand. What was it 
that moved and held us, the rest of the three hundred reckless, 


120 


THE SERMON 


childish boys, who feared the Doctor with all our hearts, and 
very little besides in heaven or earth; who thought more of our 
sets in the school than of the Church of Christ, and put the tra- 
ditions of Rugby and the public opinion of boys in our daily 
life above the laws of God? We couldn’t enter into half that 
we heard; we hadn’t the knowledge of our own hearts or the 
knowledge of one another, and little enough of the faith, hope, 
and love needed to that end. But we listened, as all boys in 
their better moods will listen (ay, and men, too, for the matter 
of that), to a man whom we felt to be, with all his heart and 
soul and strength, striving against whatever was mean and un- 
manly and unrighteous in our little world. It was not the cold, 
clear voice of one giving advice and warning from serene heights 
to those who were strugghng and sinning below, but the warm, 
living voice of one who was fighting for us and by our sides, and 
calling on us to help him and ourselves and one another. And 
so, wearily and httle by little, but surely and steadily on the 
whole, was brought home to the young boy, for the first time, 
the meaning of his life: that it was no fool’s or sluggard’s para- 
dise into which he had wandered by chance, but a battlefield 
ordained from of old, where there are no spectators, but the 
youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life and death. 
And he who roused this consciousness in them showed them at 
the same time, by every word he spoke in the pulpit and by his 
whole daily life, how that battle was to be fought; and stood 
there before them their fellow soldier and the captain of their 
band. The true sort of captain, too, for a boy’s army; one who 
had no misgivings and gave no uncertain word of command, and, 
let who would yield or make truce, would fight the fight out (so 
every boy felt) to the last gasp and the last drop of blood. Other 
sides of his character might take hold of and influence boys here 
and there; but it was this thoroughness and undaunted courage 
which more than anything else won his way to the hearts of the 
great mass of those on whom he left his mark, and made them 
believe first in him, and then in his Master. 

It was this quality above all others which moved such boys as 


THE DOCTORS FIRST HOLD I2i 

our hero, who had nothing whatever remarkable about him ex- 
cept excess of boyishness; by which I mean animal life in its 
fullest measure, good-natured and honest impulses, hatred of in- 
justice and meanness, and thoughtlessness enough to sink a 
three-decker. ^ And so, during the next two years, in which it 
was more than doubtful whether he would get good or evil from 
the school, and before any steady purpose or principle grew up 
in him, whatever his week’s sins and shortcomings might have 
been, he hardly ever left the chapel on Sunday evenings without 
a serious resolve to stand by and follow the Doctor, and a feel- 
ing that it was only cowardice (the incarnation of all other sins 
in such a boy’s mind) which hindered him from doing so with 
all his heart. 

The next day Tom was duly placed in the third form, and be- 
gan his lessons in a corner of the big school. He found the work 
very easy, as he had been well grounded, and knew his grammar 
by heart; and, as he had no intimate companion to make him 
idle (East and his other Schoolhouse friends being in the lower 
fourth, the form above him), soon gained golden opinions from 
his master, who said he was placed too low, and should be put out 
at the end of the half year. So all went well with him in school, 
and he wrote the most flourishing letters home to his mother, 
full of his own success and the unspeakable delights of a public 
school. 

In the house, too, all went well. The end of the half year was 
drawing near, which kept everybody in a good humor, and the 
house was ruled well and strongly by Warner and Brooke. 
True, the general system was rough and hard, and there was 
bullying in nooks and corners, bad signs for the future; but it 
never got further, or dared show itself openly, stalking about 
the passages and hall and bedrooms, and making the life of the 
small boys a continual fear. 

Tom, as a new boy, was of right excused fagging for the first 
month, but in his enthusiasm for his new life this privilege 
hardly pleased him; and East and others of his young friends 
^ A large sailing vessel. 


122 


HOUSE FAGGING 


discovering this, kindly allowed him to indulge his fancy, and 
take their turns at night fagging and cleaning studies. These 
were the principal duties of the fags in the house. From supper 
until nine o’clock, three fags taken in order stood in the passages, 
and answered any praepostor who called Fag, racing to the door, 
the last comer having to do the work. This consisted generally 
of going to the buttery for beer and bread and cheese (for the 
great men did not sup with the rest, but had each his own allow- 
ance in his study or the fifth-form room), cleaning candlesticks 
and putting in new candles, toasting cheese, bottling beer, and 
carrying messages about the house; and Tom, in the first blush 
of his hero worship, felt it a high privilege to receive orders 
from, and be the bearer of the supper of, old Brooke. And be- 
sides the night work each praepostor had three or four fags 
specially allotted to him, of whom he was supposed to be the 
guide, philosopher, and friend, and who in return for these 
good offices had to clean out his study every morning by 
turns, directly after first lesson and before he returned from 
breakfast. And the pleasure of seeing the great men’s studies, 
and looking at their pictures, and peeping into their books, 
made Tom a ready substitute for any boy who was too lazy 
to do his own work. And so he soon gained the character of 
a good-natured, willing fellow, who was ready to do a turn for 
any one. 

In all the games, too, he joined with all his heart, and soon be- 
came well versed in all the mysteries of football, by continued 
practice at the Schoolhouse little-side, which played daily. 

The only incident worth recording here, however, was the first 
run at hare and hounds. On the last Tuesday but one of the half 
year, he was passing through the hall after dinner, when he was 
hailed with shouts from Tadpole and several other fags seated 
at one of the long tables, the chorus of which was, “Come and 
help us tear up scent.” 

Tom approached the table in obedience to the mysterious 
summons, always ready to help, and found the party engaged 
in tearing up old newspapers, copybooks, and magazines, into 


THE MEET 


123 

small pieces, with which they were filling four large canvas 
bags. 

“It’s the turn of our house to find scent for big-side hare and 
hounds,” exclaimed Tadpole; “tear away, there’s no time to 
lose before calling-over.” 

“I think it’s a great shame,” said another small boy, “to have 
such a hard run for the last day.” 

“Which run is it?” said Tadpole. 

“Oh, the Barby run, I hear,” answered the other, “nine miles 
at least, and hard ground; no chance of getting in at the finish 
unless you’re a first-rate scud.” 

“ Well, I’m going to have a try,” said Tadpole; “it’s the last 
run of the half; and if a fellow gets in at the end, big-side stands 
ale and bread and cheese, and a bowl of punch; and the Cock’s 
such a famous place for ale.” 

“I should like to try, too,” said Tom. 

“Well, then, leave your waistcoat behind, and listen at the 
door, after calling-over, and you’ll hear where the meet is.” 

After calling-over, sure enough, there were two boys at the 
door, calling out, “Big-side hare and hounds meet at White 
Hall ”; and Tom, having girded himself with leather strap, and 
left all superfluous clothing behind, set off for White Hall, an 
old gable-ended house some quarter of a mile from the town, 
with East, whom he had persuaded to join, notwithstanding 
his prophecy that they could never get in, as it was the hard- 
est run of the year. 

- At the meet they found some forty or fifty boys; and Tom felt 
sure, from having seen many of them run at football, that he and 
East were more likely to get in than they. 

After a few minutes’ waiting, two well-known runners, chosen 
for the hares, buckled on the four bags filled with scent, com- 
pared their watches with those of young Brooke and Thorne, 
and started off at a long slinging trot across the fields in the 
direction of Barby. 

Then the hounds clustered round Thorne, who explained 
shortly, “They’re to have six minutes’ law. We run into the 


THE FIRST BURST 


124 

Cock, and every one who comes in within a quarter of an hour 
of the hares ’ll be counted, if he has been round Barby church.” 
Then came a minute’s pause or so, and then the watches are 
pocketed, and the pack is led through the gateway into the field 
which the hares had first crossed. Here they break into a trot, 
scattering over the field to find the first traces of the scent 
which the hares throw out as they go along. The old hounds 
make straight for the likely points, and in a minute a cry of 
“forward” comes from one of them, and the whole pack quicken- 
ing their pace make for the spot, while the boy who hit the scent 
first, and the two or three nearest to him, are over the first 
fence, and making play along the hedgerow in the long grass- 
field beyond. The rest of the pack rush at the gap already 
made, and scramble through, jostling one another. “Forward” 
again, before they are half through; the pace quickens into 
a sharp run, the tail hounds all straining to get up with the 
lucky leaders. They are gallant hares, and the scent lies thick 
right across another meadow and into a plowed field, where 
the pace begins to tell ; then over a good wattle ^ with a ditch on 
the other side, and down a large pasture studded with old 
thorns, which slopes down to the first brook; the great Leices- 
tershire sheep charge away across the field as the pack come 
racing down the slope. The brook is a small one, and the scent 
lies right ahead up the opposite slope, and as thick as ever; not 
a turn or a check to favor the tail hounds, who strain on, now 
trailing in a long line, many a youngster beginning to drag his 
legs heavily, and feel his heart beat like a hammer, and the bad 
plucked ones thinking that after all it isn’t worth while to keep 
it up. 

Tom, East, and the Tadpole had a good start, and are well up 
for such young hands, and after rising the slope and crossing 
the next field, find themselves up with the leading hounds, who 
have overrun the scent and are trying back; they have come a 
mile and a half in about eleven minutes, a pace which shows that 
it is the last day. About twenty-five of the original starters 
1 A fence. 


THE FIRST CHECK 


125 

only show here, the rest having already given in; the leaders 
are busy making casts into the fields on the left and right, and 
the others get their second winds. 

Then comes the cry of “forward” again, from young Brooke, 
from the extreme left, and the pack settles down to work again 
steadily and doggedly, the whole keeping pretty well together. 
The scent, though still good, is not so thick; there is no need of 
that, for in this part of the run every one knows the line which 
must be taken, and so there are no casts to be made, but good 
downright ‘running and fencing to be done. All who are now 
up mean coming in, and they come to the foot of Barby Hill 
without losing more than two or three more of the pack. This 
last straight two miles and a half is always a vantage ground 
for the hounds, and the hares know it well; they are generally 
viewed on the side of Barby Hill, and all eyes are on the lookout 
for them to-day. But not a sign of them appears, so now will 
be the hard work for the hounds, and there is nothing for it but 
to cast about for the scent, for it is now the hares’ turn, and they 
may baffle the pack dreadfully in the next two miles. 

Ill fares it now with our youngsters that they are SchooUiouse 
boys, and so follow young Brooke; for he takes the wide casts 
round to the left, conscious of his own powers, and loving 
the hard work. For if you would consider for a moment, you 
small boys, you would remember that the Cock, where the run 
ends and the good ale will be going, Lies far out to the right of 
the Dunchurch-road, so that every cast you take to the left is 
so much extra work. And at this stage of the run, when the 
evening is closing in already, no one remarks whether you run a 
little cunning or not, so you should stick to those crafty hounds 
who keep edging away to the right, and not follow a prodigal ^ 
like young Brooke, whose legs are twice as long as yours and of 
cast-iron, wholly indifferent to two or three miles more or less. 
However, they struggle after him, sobbing and plunging along, 
Tom and East pretty close, and Tadpole, whose big head begins 
to pull him down, some thirty yards behind. 

1 That is, a fellow extravagant with his strength. 


126 


NO GO 


Now comes a brook, with stiff clay banks, from which they 
can hardly drag their legs; and they hear faint cries for help 
from the wretched Tadpole, who has fairly stuck fast. But 
they have too little run left in themselves to pull up for their 
own brothers. Three fields more, and another check, and then 
“forward” called away to the extreme right. 

The two boys’ souls die within them; they can never do it. 
Young Brooke thinks so, too, and says kindly, “You’ll cross 
a lane after next field, keep down it, and you’ll hit the Dun- 
church-road below the Cock,” and then steams away for the 
run in, in which he’s sure to be first, as if he were just starting. 
They struggle on across the next field, the “forwards” getting 
fainter and fainter, and then ceasing. The whole hunt is out 
of earshot, and all hope of coming in is over. 

“Hang it all!” broke out East, as soon as he had got wind 
enough, pulling off his hat and mopping at his face, all spattered 
with dirt and lined with sweat, from which went up a thick 
steam into the still, cold air. “I told you how it would be. 
What a thick I was to come! Here we are dead beat, and yet I 
know we’re close to the run in, if we knew the country.” 

“Well,” said Tom, mopping away, and gulping down his 
disappointment, “it can’t be helped. We did our best, anyhow. 
Hadn’t we better find this lane, and go down it as young Brooke 
told us?” 

“I suppose so — ^nothing else for it,” grunted East. “If ever 
I go out last day again,” growl — growl — growl. 

So they tried back slowly and sorrowfully, and found the 
lane, and went limping down it, plashing in the cold, puddly 
ruts, and beginning to feel how the run had taken it out of them. 
The evening closed in fast and clouded over, dark, cold, and 
dreary. 

“I say, it must be locking-up, I should think,” remarked 
East, breaking the silence; “it’s so dark.” 

“What if we’re late?” said Tom. 

“No tea, and sent up to the Doctor,” answered East. 

The thought didn’t add to their cheerfulness. Presently a 


HOME AT LAST 


127 

faint halloo was heard from an adjoining field. They answered 
it and stopped, hoping for some competent rustic to guide 
them, when over a gate some twenty yards ahead crawled the 
wretched Tadpole, in a state of collapse; he had lost a shoe in 
the brook, and been groping after it up to his elbows on the stiff 
wet clay, and a more miserable creature in the shape of boy 
seldom has been seen. 

The sight of him, notwithstanding, cheered them, for he was 
some degrees more wretched than they. They also cheered 
him, as he was now no longer under the dread of passing his 
night, alone in the fields. And so in better heart, the three 
plashed painfully down the never-ending lane. At last it 
widened, just as utter darkness set in, and they came out on to 
a turnpike road, and there paused bewildered, for they had lost 
all bearings, and knew not whether to turn to the right or 
left. 

Luckily for them they had not to decide, for lumbering along 
the road, with one lamp lighted, and two spavined horses 
in the shafts, came a heavy coach, which after a moment’s 
suspense they recognized as the Oxford coach, the redoubtable 
Pig and Whistle. 

It lumbered slowly up, and the boys, mustering their last run, 
caught it as it passed, and began scrambling up behind, in which 
exploit East missed his footing and fell flat on his nose along the 
road. Then the others hailed the old scarecrow of a coach- 
man, who pulled up and agreed to take them in for a shilling; 
so there they sat on the back seat, drubbing with their heels, and 
their teeth chattering with cold, and jogged into Rugby some 
forty minutes after locking-up. 

Five minutes afterwards, three small, limping, shivering 
figures steal along through the Doctor’s garden, and into the 
house by the servants’ entrance (all the other gates have been 
closed long since), where the first thing they light upon in the 
passage is old Thomas, ambling along, candle in one hand and 
keys in the other. 

He stops and examines their condition with a grim smile. 


128 


WHO SHALL BELL THE CAT? 

“Ah! East, Hall, and Brown, late for locking-up. Must go 
to the Doctor’s study at once.” 

“Well, but, Thomas, mayn’t we go and wash first? You can 
put down the time, you know.” 

“Doctor’s study d’rectly you come in — that’s the orders,” 
replied old Thomas, motioning towards the stairs at the end of 
the passage which led up into the Doctor’s house; and the boys 
turned ruefully down it, not cheered by the old verger’s mut- 
tered remark, “What a pickle the boys be in!” Thomas re- 
ferred to their faces and habiliments, but they construed it as 
indicating the Doctor’s state of mind. Upon the short flight 
of stairs they paused to hold counsel. 

“Who’ll go in first?” inquires Tadpole. 

“You — you’re the senior,” answered East. 

“Catch me — look at the state I’m in,” rejoined Hall, show- 
ing the arms of his jacket. “I must get behind you two.” 

“Well, but look at me,” said East, indicating the mass of clay 
behind which he was standing; “I’m worse than you, two to 
one; you might grow cabbages on my trousers.” 

“That’s all down below, and you can keep your legs behind 
the sofa,” said Hall. 

“Here, Brown, you’re the show-figure — you must lead.” 

“ But my face is all muddy,” argued Tom. 

“Oh, we’re all in one boat for that matter; but come on, we’re 
only making it worse, dawdling here.” 

“Well, just give us a brush, then,” said Tom; and they began 
trying to rub off the superfluous dirt from each other’s jackets, 
but it was not dry enough, and the rubbing made it worse; so 
in despair they pushed through the swing door at the head of the 
stairs, and found themselves in the Doctor’s hall. 

“That’s the library door,” said East, in a whisper, pushing 
Tom forwards. The sound of merry voices and laughter came 
from within, and his first hesitating knock was unanswered. 
But at the second, the Doctor’s voice said, “Come in”; and 
Tom turned the handle, and he, with the others behind him, 
sidled into the room. 


THEIR RECEPTION 


129 

The Doctor looked up from his task; he was working away 
with a great chisel at the bottom of a boy’s sailing-boat, the 
lines of which he was no doubt fashioning on the model of one 
of Nicias’ galleys.^ Round him stood three or four children; 
the candles burned brightly on a large table at the farther end, 
covered with books and papers, and a great fire threw a ruddy 
glow over the rest of the room. All looked so kindly, and 
homely, and comfortable, that the boys took heart in a moment, 
and Tom advanced from behind the shelter of the great sofa. 
The Doctor nodded to the children, who went out, casting 
curious and amused glances at the three young scarecrows. 

“Well, my little fellows,” began the Doctor, drawing him- 
self up with his back to the fire, the chisel in one hand, and his 
coat tails in the other, and his eyes twinkling as he looked them 
over, “what makes you so late?” 

“Please, sir, weVe been out big-side hare and hounds, and 
lost our way.” 

“Hah! you couldn’t keep up, I suppose?” 

“Well, sir,” said East, stepping out, and not liking that the 
Doctor should think lightly of his running powers, “we got 
round Barby all right, but then” — 

“Why, what a state you’re in, my boy!” interrupted the 
Doctor, as the pitiful condition of East’s garments was fully 
revealed to him. 

“That’s the fall I got, sir, in the road,” said East, looking 
down at himself; “the Old Pig came by” — 

“The what?” said the Doctor. 

“The Oxford coach, sir,” explained Hall. 

“Hah! yes, the Regulator,” said the Doctor. 

“And I tumbled on my face, trying to get up behind,” went 
on East. 

“You’re not hurt, I hope?” said the Doctor. 

“Oh, no, sir.” 

“Well, now, run upstairs, all three of you, and get clean 

1 Greek vessels of war, commanded by the famous general Nicias in an 
expedition against Syracuse in 413 B. C. 


130 GRIEVANCES ARE FORGOTTEN 

things on, and then tell the housekeeper to give you some tea. 
You’re too young to try such long runs. Let Warner know 
I’ve seen you. Good night.” 

“ Good night, sir.” And away scuttled the three boys in high 
glee. 

“ What a brick, not to give us even twenty lines to learn!” 
said the Tadpole, as they reached their bedroom; and in half an 
hour afterwards they were sitting by the fire in the housekeeper’s 
room at a sumptuous tea, with cold meat, ‘‘twice as good a 
grub as we should have got in the hall,” as the Tadpole remarked 
with a grin, his mouth full of buttered toast. All their griev- 
ances were forgotten, and they were resolving to go out the 
first big-side next half, and thinking hare and hounds the most 
delightful of games. 

A day or two afterwards the great passage outside the bed- 
rooms was cleared of the boxes and portmanteaus, which went 
down to be packed by the matron; and great games of chariot 
racing, and cockfighting, and bolstering, went on in the vacant 
space, the sure sign of a closing half year. 

Then came the making up of parties for the journey home, and 
Tom joined a party who were to hire a coach, and post with four 
horses to Oxford. 

Then the last Saturday, on which the Doctor came round to 
each form to give out the prizes, and hear the master’s last re- 
ports of how they and their charges had been conducting them- 
selves; and Tom, to his huge delight, was praised, and got his 
remove into the lower fourth, in which all his Schoolhouse 
friends were. 

On the next Tuesday morning, at four o’clock, hot coffee was 
going on in the housekeeper’s and matron’s rooms; boys wrapped 
in great coats and mufflers were swallowing hasty mouthfuls, 
rushing about, tumbling over luggage, and asking questions all at 
once of the matron; outside the school gates were drawn up sev- 
eral chaises and the four-horse coach which Tom’s party had 
chartered, the postboys in their best jackets and breeches, and a 
cornopean player, hired for the occasion, blowing away “A 


LAST DAYS 13 1 

southerly wind and a cloudy sky,” waking all peaceful inhabi- 
tants halfway down the High Street. ' 

Every minute the bustle and hubbub increased, porters stag- 
gered about with boxes and bags, the cornopean played louder. 
Old Thomas sat in his den with a great yellow bag by his side, 
out of which he was paying journey money to each boy, com- 
paring, by the light of a solitary dip,^ the dirty crabbed little 
list in his own handwriting with the Doctor’s list and the amount 
of his cash; his head was on one side, his mouth screwed up, and 
his spectacles dim from early toil. He had prudently locked 
the door, and carried on his operations solely through the 
window, or he would have been driven wild, and lost all his 
money. 

Thomas, do be quick, we shall never catch the Highflyer at 
D unchurch.” 

“That’s your money, all right, Green.” 

“Hullo, Thomas, the Doctor said I was to have two-pound 
ten; you’ve only given me two pound.” (I fear that Master 
Green is not confining himself strictly to truth.) Thomas turns 
his head more on one side than ever, and spells away at the dirty 
list. Green is forced away from the window. 

“Here, Thomas, never mind him, mine’s thirty shillings.” 
“And mine, too,” “And mine,” shouted others. 

One way or another, the party to which Tom belonged all got 
packed and paid, and sallied out to the gates, the cornopean 
playing frantically “Drops of Brandy,” in allusion, probably, 
to the slight potations in which the musician and postboys had 
been already indulging. All luggage was carefully stowed 
away inside the coach and in the front and hind boots, so that 
not a hatbox was visible outside. Five or six small boys, with 
pea shooters, and the cornopean player, got up behind; in front, 
the big boys, mostly smoking, not for pleasure, but because 
they are now gentlemen at large — and this is the most correct 
public method of notifying the fact. 

“Robinson’s coach will be down the road in a minute — it has 
1 Candle. 


OFF 


132 

gone up to Bird’s to pick up; we’ll wait till they’re close, and 
make a race of it,” says the leader. “Now, boys, half a sov- 
ereign apiece if you beat ’em into Dunchurch by one hundred 
yards.” 

“All right, sir,” shouted the grinning postboys. 

Down comes Robinson’s coach in a minute or two, with a rival 
cornopean; and away go the two vehicles, horses galloping, boys 
cheering, horns playing loud. There is a special Providence 
over schoolboys as well as sailors, or they must have upset 
twenty times in the first five miles; sometimes actually abreast 
of one another, and the boys on the roofs exchanging volleys of 
peas, now nearly running over a postchaise which had started 
before them, now halfway up a bank, now with a wheel and a 
half over a yawning ditch; and all this in a dark morning, with 
nothing but their own lamps to guide them. However, it’s 
all over at last, and they have run over nothing but an old pig 
in Southam Street; the last peas are distributed in the Corn 
Market at Oxford, where they arrive between eleven and twelve, 
and sit down to a sumptuous breakfast at the Angel, which they 
are made to pay for accordingly. Here the party breaks up, all 
going now different ways; and Tom orders out a chaise and pair 
as grand as a lord, though he has scarcely five shiUings left in 
his pocket, and more than twenty miles to get home. 

“Where to, sir? ” 

“Red Lion, Farringdon,” says Tom, giving hostler a shilling. 

“All right, sir. Red Lion, Jem,” to the postboy, and Tom 
rattles away towards home. At Farringdon, being known to 
the innkeeper, he gets that worthy to pay for the Oxford horses, 
and forward him in another chaise at once; and so the gorgeous 
young gentleman arrives at the paternal mansion, and Squire 
Brown looks rather blue at having to pay two pound ten shil- 
hngs for the posting expenses from Oxford. But the boy’s in- 
tense joy at getting home, and the wonderful health he is in, and 
the good character he brings, and the brave stories he tells of 
Rugby, its doings and delights, soon mollify the Squire, and 
three happier people didn’t sit down to dinner that day in Eng- 


THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 133 

land (it is the boy’s first dinner at six o’clock at home, great 
promotion already) than the Squire, and his wife, and Tom 
Brown, at the end of his first half year at Rugby. 


CHAPTER VIII 

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 

^‘They are slaves who will not choose 
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse. 

Rather than in silence shrink 

From the truth they needs must think: 

They are slaves who dare not be 
In the right with two or three.” 

Lowell, Stanzas on Freedom. 

The lower-fourth form, in which Tom found himself at the 
beginning of the next half year, was the largest form in the lower 
school, and numbered upwards of forty boys. Young gentle- 
men of all ages, from nine to fifteen, were to be found there, who 
expended such part of their energies as was devoted to Latin 
and Greek upon a book of Livy, the Bucolics of Vergil, and the 
Hecuba of Euripides, which were ground out in small daily 
portions. The driving of this unlucky lower fourth must have 
been grievous work to the unfortunate master, for it was the 
most unhappily constituted of any in the school. Here stuck 
the great stupid boys, who for the life of them could never mas- 
ter the accidence the objects alternately of mirth and terror 
to the yoimgsters, who were daily taking them up, and laughing 
at them in lesson, and getting kicked by them for so doing in 
play hours. There were no less than three unhappy fellows in 
tail coats, with incipient down on their chins, whom the Doc- 
tor and the master of the form were always endeavoring to hoist 
into the upper school, but whose parsing and construing re- 
sisted the most well-meant shoves. Then came the mass of the 
form, boys of eleyen and twelve, the most mischievous and reck- 
less age^of British youth, of whom East and Tom Brown were 

1 The fundamentals of grammar. 


THE LOWER FOURTH 


134 

fair specimens. As full of tricks as monkeys, and of excuses as 
Irishwomen, making fun of their master, one another, and their 
lessons, Argus ^ himself would have been puzzled to keep an eye 
on them; and as for making them steady or serious for half an 
hour together, it was simply hopeless. The remainder of the 
form consisted of young prodigies of nine and ten, who were 
going up the school at the rate of a form a half year, all bOys’ 
hands and wits being against them in their progress. It would 
have been one man’s work to see that the precocious youngsters 
had fair play; and as the master had a good deal besides to do, 
they hadn’t, and were forever being shoved down three or four 
places, their verses stolen, their books inked, their jackets 
whitened, and their lives otherwise made a burden to them. 

The lower fourth and all the forms below it were heard in 
the great school, and were not trusted to prepare their lessons 
before coming in, but were whipped into school three quarters 
of an hour before the lesson began by their respective masters, 
and there scattered about on the benches, with dictionary and 
grammar, hammered out their twenty lines of Vergil and Eu- 
ripides in the midst of Babel. ^ The masters of the lower school 
walked up and down the great school together during this three 
quarters of an hour, or sat in their desks reading or looking over 
copies, and keeping such order as was possible. But the lower 
fourth was just now an overgrown form, too large for any one 
man to attend to properly, and consequently the elysium or 
ideal form of the young scapegraces who formed the staple 
of it. 

Tom, as has been said, had come up from the third with a 
good character, but the temptations of the lower fourth soon 
proved too strong for him, and he rapidly fell away, and be- 
came as unmanageable as the rest. For some weeks, indeed, he 
succeeded in maintaining the appearance of steadiness, and was 
looked upon favorably by his new master, whose eyes were 
first opened by the following little incident. 

1 A monster with a hundred eyes, the son of Zeus and Niobe. 

2 The place of confusion of tongues. See Genesis XI, 9. 


TOM'S FALL 


135 

Besides the desk which the master himself occupied there was 
another large unoccupied desk in the corner of the great school, 
which was untenanted. To rush and seize upon this desk, 
which was ascended by three steps, and held four boys, was the 
great object of ambition of the lower-fourthers; and the conten- 
tions for the occupation of it bred such disorder that at last the 
master forbade its use altogether. This of course was a chal- 
lenge to the more adventurous spirits to occupy it; and as it was 
capacious enough for two boys to lie hid there completely, it 
was seldom that it remained empty, notwithstanding the veto. 
Small holes were cut in the front, through which the occupants 
watched the masters as they walked up and down; and as lesson 
time approached, one boy at a time stole out and down the steps, 
as the masters’ backs were turned, and mingled with the gen- 
eral crowd on the forms below. Tom and East had successfully 
occupied the desk some half dozen times, and were grown so 
reckless that they were in the habit of playing small games with 
fives’ balls inside, when the masters were at the other end of the 
big school. One day, as ill luck would have it, the game be- 
came more exciting than usual, and the ball slipped through 
East’s fingers, and rolled slowly down the steps, and out into 
the middle of the school, just as the masters turned in their 
walk and faced round upon the desk. The young delinquents 
watched their master through the lookout holes march slowly 
down the school straight upon their retreat, while all the boys 
in the neighborhood of course stopped their work to look on; 
and not only were they ignominiously drawn out, and caned over 
the hand then and there, but their characters for steadiness were 
gone from that time. However, as they only shared the fate of 
some three fourths of the rest of the form, this did not weigh 
heavily upon them. 

In fact, the only occasions on which they cared about the 
matter were the monthly examinations, when the Doctor came 
round to examine their form, for one long awful hour, in the 
work which they had done in the preceding month. The second 
monthly examination came round soon after Tom’s fall, and it 


TRISTE LUPUS 


136 

was with anything but lively anticipations that he and the other 
lower-fourth boys came in to prayers on the morning of the ex- 
amination day. 

Prayers and calling-over seemed twice as short as usual, and 
before they could get construes of a tithe of the hard passages 
marked in the margin of their books they were all seated round, 
and the Doctor was standing in the middle, talking in whispers 
to the master. Tom couldn’t hear a word which passed, and 
never lifted his eyes from his book; but he knew by a sort of 
magnetic instinct that the Doctor’s under lip was coming out, 
and his eye beginning to burn, and his gown getting gathered 
up more and more tightly in his left hand. The suspense was 
agonizing, and Tom knew that he was sure on such occasions to 
make an example of the Schoolhouse boys. “If he would only 
begin,” thought Tom, “I shouldn’t mind.” 

At last the whispering ceased, and the name which was called 
out was not Brown. He looked up for a moment, but the Doc- 
tor’s face was too awful; Tom wouldn’t have met his eye for all 
he was worth, and buried himself in his book again. 

The boy who was called up first was a clever, merry. School- 
house boy, one of their set; he was some connection of the Doc- 
tor’s, and a great favorite, and ran in and out of his house as he 
liked, and so was selected for the first victim. 

“Triste lupus stabulis,”” began the luckless youngster, and 
stammered through some eight or ten lines. 

“There, that will do,” said the Doctor; “now construe.” 

On common occasions, the boy could have construed the pas- 
sage well enough, probably, but now his head was gone. 

“Triste lupus, the sorrowful wolf,” he began. 

A shudder ran through the whole form, and the Doctor’s 
wrath fairly boiled over; he made three steps up to the con- 
struer, and gave him a good box on the ear. The blow was not 
a hard one, but the boy was so taken by surprise that he started 
back; the form caught the back of his knees, and over he went 
on the floor behind. There was a dead silence over the whole 
school; never before and never again while Tom was at school 


MISRULE AND ITS CAUSES 137 

did the Doctor strike a boy in lesson. The provocation must 
have been great. However, the victim had saved his form for 
that occasion, for the Doctor turned to the top bench, and put 
on the best boys for the rest of the hour; and though, at the end 
of the lesson, he gave them all such a rating as they did not for- 
get, this terrible field day passed over without any severe visita- 
tions in the shape of punishments or floggings. Forty young 
scapegraces expressed their thanks to the “sorrowful wolf” in 
their different ways before second lesson. 

But a character for steadiness once gone is not easily recov- 
ered, as Tom found; and for years afterward he went up the 
school without it, and the masters’ hands were against him, and 
his against them.” And he regarded them, as a matter of 
course, as his natural enemies. 

Matters were not so comfortable either in the house as they 
had been, for old Brooke left at Christmas, and one or two others 
of the sixth-form boys at the following Easter. Their rule had 
been rough, but strong and just in the main, and a higher stand- 
ard was beginning to be set up; in fact, there had been a short 
foretaste of the good time which followed some years later. 
Just now, however, all threatened to return into darkness and 
chaos again. For the new praepostors were either small young 
boys, whose cleverness had carried them up to the top of the 
school, while in strength of body and character they were not 
yet fit for a share in the government; or else big fellows of the 
wrong sort, boys whose friendships and tastes had a downward 
tendency, who had not caught the meaning of their position 
and work, and felt none of its responsibilities. So, under this 
no-govemment the Schoolhouse began to see bad times. The 
big fifth-form boys, who were a sporting and drinking set, soon 
began to usurp power, and to fag the little boys as if they were 
praepostors, and to bully and oppress any who showed signs of 
resistance. The bigger sort of sixth-form boys just described 
soon made common cause with the fifth, while the smaller sort, 
hampered by their colleagues’ desertion to the enemy, could 
not make head against them. So the fags were without their 


138 THE OLD BOY MORALIZETH THEREON 

lawful masters and protectors, and ridden over rough-shod by a 
set of boys whom they were not bound to obey, and whose only 
right over them stood in their bodily powers; and, as old Brooke 
had prophesied, the house by degrees broke up into small sets 
and parties, and lost the strong feeling of fellowship which he set 
so much store by, and with it much of the prowess in games, and 
the lead in all school matters, which he had done so much to 
keep up. 

In no place in the world has individual character more weight 
than at a public school. Remember this, I beseech you, all you 
boys who are getting into the upper forms. Now is the time in 
all your lives, probably, when you may have more wide in- 
fluence for good or evil on the society you live in than you ever 
can have again. Quit yourselves like men, then; speak up, and 
strike out, if necessary, for whatsoever is true, and manly, and 
lovely, and of good report; ^ never try to be popular, but only to 
do your duty and help others to do theirs, and you may leave the 
tone of feeling in the school higher than you found it, and so be 
doing good, which no living soul can measure, to generations of 
your countrymen yet unborn. For boys follow one another in 
herds like sheep, for good or evil; they hate thinking, and have 
rarely any settled principles. Every school, indeed, has its own 
traditionary standard of right and wrong, which cannot be 
transgressed with impunity, marking certain things as low and 
blackguard, and certain others as lawful and right. This stand- 
ard is ever varying, though it changes only slowly, and little by 
little; and, subject only to such standard, it is the leading boys 
for the time being who give the tone to all the rest, and make 
the school either a noble institution for the training of Christian 
Englishmen, or a place where a young boy will get more evil 
than he would if he were turned out to make his way in London 
streets, or anything between these two extremes. 

The change for the worse in the Schoolhouse, however, didn’t 
press very heavily on our youngsters for some time; they were in 
a good bedroom, where slept the only praepostor left who was 
^ See Philippians, IV, 8. 


THE SHOE BEGINS TO PINCH 139 

able to keep thorough order, and their study was in his passage; 
so, though they were fagged more or less, and occasionally 
kicked or cuffed by the bullies, they were, on the whole, well off; 
and the fresh, brave school life, so full of games, adventures, and 
good fellowship, so ready at forgetting, so capacious at en- 
joying, so bright at forecasting, outweighed a thousand-fold 
their troubles with the master of their form, and the occasional 
ill-usage of the big boys in the house. It wasn’t till some year 
or so after the events recorded above that the praepostor of 
their room and passage left. None of the other sixth-form boys 
would move into their passage; and, to the disgust and the indig- 
nation of Tom and East, one morning after breakfast they were 
seized upon by Flashman, and made to carry down his books 
and furniture into the unoccupied study which he had taken. 
From this time they began to feel the weight of the tyranny of 
Flashman and his friends, and, now that trouble had come 
home to their own doors, began to look out for sympathizers 
and partners amongst the rest of the fags; and meetings of the 
oppressed began to be held, and murmurs to arise, and plots to 
be laid, as to how they should free themselves and be avenged on 
their enemies. 

While matters were in this state. East and Tom were one 
evening sitting in their study. They had done their work for 
first lesson, and Tom was in a brown study, like a young Wil- 
liam Tell, upon the wrongs of fags in general, and his own in 
particular. 

“I say. Scud,” said he at last, rousing himself to snuff the 
candle, ‘‘what right have the fifth-form boys to fag us as they 
do?” 

“No more right than you have to fag them,” answered East, 
without looking up from an early number of Pickwick,” which 
was just coming out, and which he was luxuriously devouring, 
stretched on his back on the sofa. 

Tom relapsed into his brown study, and East went on reading 
and chuckling. The contrast of the boys’ faces would have 
given infinite amusement to a looker-on; the one so solemn and 


WHAT HELP? 


140 

big with mighty purpose, the other radiant and bubbling over 
with fun. 

“Do you know, old fellow, IVe been thinking it over a good 
deal,” began Tom again. 

“ Oh, yes, I know, fagging you are thinking of. Hang it all — 
but listen here, Tom, — there’s fun. Mr. Winkle’s ^ horse” — 

“And I’ve made up my mind,” broke in Tom, “that I won’t 
fag except for the sixth.” 

“Quite right, too, my boy,” cried East, putting his finger on 
the place and looking up; “but a pretty peck of troubles you’ll 
get into, if you’re going to play that game. However, I’m all 
for a strike myself, if we can get others to join — it’s getting too 
bad.” 

“Can’t we get some sixth-form fellow to take it up?” asked 
Tom. 

“Well, perhaps we might; Morgan would interfere, I think. 
Only,” added East, after a moment’s pause, “you see we should 
have to tell him about it, and that’s against school principles. 
Don’t you remember what old Brooke said about learning to 
take our own parts?” 

“Ah, I wish old Brooke were back again — it was all right in 
his time.” 

“Why, yes, you see then the strongest and best fellows were 
in the sixth, and the fifth-form fellows were afraid of them, and 
they kept good order; but now our sixth-form fellows are too 
small, and the fifth don’t care for them, and do what they like 
in the house.” 

“And so we get a double set of masters,” cried Tom indig- 
nantly; “the lawful ones, who are responsible to the Doctor 
at any rate, and the unlawful — the tyrants, who are responsible 
to nobody.” 

“Down with the tyrants!” cried East; “I’m all for law and 
order, and hurra for a revolution.” 

“I shouldn’t mind if it were only for young Brooke now,” said 
Tom, “he’s such a good-hearted, gentlemanly fellow, and ought 
1 A character in the Pickwick Papers. 


THE EXPLOSION 141 

to be in the sixth — I’d do anything for him. But that black- 
guard Flashman, who never speaks to one without a kick or an 
oath” — 

‘‘The cowardly brute,” broke in East, “how I hate him! 
And he knows it, too; he knows that you and I think him a 
coward. What a bore that he’s got a study in this passage! 
Don’t you hear them now at supper in his den? Brandy punch 
going. I’ll bet. I wish the Doctor would come out and catch 
him. We must change our study as soon as we can.” 

“Change or no change. I’ll never fag for him again,” said 
Tom, thumping the table. 

“Fa-a-a-ag!” sounded along the passage from Flashman’s 
study. The two boys looked at one another in silence. It had 
struck nine, so the regular night-fags had left their duty, and 
they were the nearest to the supper party. East sat up, and be- 
gan to look comical, as he always did under difficulties. 

“Fa-a-a-ag!” again. No answer. 

“Here, Brown! East! you cursed young skulks,” roared out 
Flashman, coming to his open door, “I know you’re in — no 
shirking.” 

Tom stole to their door, and drew the bolts as noiselessly as he 
could; East blew out the candle. “Barricade the first,” whis- 
pered he. “Now, Tom, mind, no surrender.” 

“Trust me for that,” said Tom between his teeth. 

In another minute they heard the supper party turn out and 
come down the passage to their door. They held their breaths 
and heard whispering, of which they only made out Flashman’s 
words, “I know the young brutes are in.” 

Then came summonses to open, which being unanswered, 
the assault commenced; luckily the door was a good strong oak 
one, and resisted the united weight of Flashman’s party. A 
pause followed, and they heard a besieger remark, “They’re in 
safe enough — don’t you see how the door holds at top and bot- 
tom? so the bolts must be drawn. We should have forced the 
lock long ago.” East gave Tom a nudge, to call attention to 
this scientific remark. 


THE SIEGE 


142 

Then came attacks on particular panels, one of which at last 
gave way to the repeated kicks; but it broke inwards, and the 
broken piece got jammed across, the door being lined with green 
baize, and couldn’t easily be removed from outside; and the 
besieged, scorning further concealment, strengthened their de- 
fences by pressing the end of their sofa against the door. So, 
after one or two more ineffectual efforts, Flashman & Co. retired, 
vowing vengeance in no mild terms. 

The first danger over, it only remained for the besieged to 
effect a safe retreat, as it was now near bedtime. They listened 
intently, and heard the supper party resettle themselves, and 
then gently drew back first one bolt and then the other. Pres- 
ently the convivial noises began again steadily. “Now, then, 
stand by for a run,” said East, throwing the door wide open and 
rushing into the passage, closely followed by Tom. They were 
too quick to be caught, but Flashman was on the lookout, and 
sent an empty pickle- jar whizzing after them, which narrowly 
missed Tom’s head, and broke into twenty pieces at the end of 
the passage. “He wouldn’t mind killing one, if he wasn’t 
caught,” said East, as they turned the corner. 

There was no pursuit, so the two turned into the hall, where 
they found a knot of small boys round the fire. Their story was 
told — the war of independence had broken out — who would 
join the revolutionary forces? Several others present bound 
themselves not to fag for the fifth form at once. One or two 
only edged off, and left the rebels. What else could they do? 
“I’ve a good mind to go to the Doctor straight,” said Tom. 

“That’ll never do — don’t you remember the levy of the school 
last half?” put in another. 

In fact, that solemn assembly, a levy of the school, had been 
held, at which the captain of the school had got up, and, after 
premising that several instances had occurred of matters having 
been reported to the masters, that this was against public mo- 
rality and school tradition, that a levy of the sixth had been held 
on the subject, and they had resolved that the practice must be 
stopped at once, had given out that any boy, in whatever form. 


THE MUCKER 143 

who should thenceforth appeal to a master, without having first 
gone to some praepostor and laid the case before him, should 
be thrashed publicly, and sent to Coventry ” 

“Well, then, let’s try the sixth. Try Morgan,” suggested 
another. “No use” — “Blabbing won’t do,” was the general 
feeling. 

“I’ll give you fellows a piece of advice,” said a voice from the 
end of the hall. They all turned round with a start, and the 
speaker got up from a bench on which he had been lying unob- 
served, and gave himself a shake; he was a big, loose-made fel- 
low, with huge limbs which had grown too far through his 
jacket and trousers. “Don’t you go to anybody at all — you 
just stand out; say you won’t fag — they’ll soon get tired of lick- 
ing you. I’ve tried it on years ago with their forerunners.” 

“No! did you? tell us how it was,” cried a chorus of voices, as 
they clustered round him. 

“Well, just as it is with you. The fifth form would fag us, 
and I and some more struck, and we beat ’em. The good 
fellows left off directly, and the bullies who kept on soon got 
afraid.” 

“Was Flashman here then?” 

“Yes! and a dirty little snivehng, sneaking fellow he was, too. 
He never dared join us, and used to toady the bullies by offering 
to fag for them, and peaching against the rest of us.” 

“Why wasn’t he cut then?” said East. 

“Oh, toadies never get cut, they’re too useful. Besides, he 
has no end of great hampers from home, with wine and game in 
them; so he toadied and fed himself into favor.” 

The quarter to ten bell now rang, and the small boys went off 
upstairs, still consulting together, and praising their new coun- 
selor, who stretched himself out on the bench before the hall fire 
again. There he lay, a very queer specimen of boyhood, by 
name Diggs, and familiarly called “the Mucker.” He was 
young for his size, and a very clever fellow, nearly at the top of 
the fifth. His friends at home, having regard, I suppose, to his 
age, and not to his size and place in the school, hadn’t put him 


THE MUCKER’S WAY OF LIFE 


144 

into tails and even his jackets were always too small; and he 
had a talent for destroying clothes, and making himself look 
shabby. He wasn’t on terms with Flashman’s set, who sneered 
at his dress and ways behind his back, which he knew, and re- 
venged himself by asking Flashman the most disagreeable 
questions, and treating him familiarly whenever a crowd of boys 
were round them. Neither was he intimate with any of the 
other bigger boys, who were warned off by his oddnesses, for he 
was a very queer fellow; besides, amongst other failings, he had 
that of impecuniosity in a remarkable degree. He brought as 
much money as other boys to school, but got rid of it in no time, 
no one knew how. And then, being also reckless, borrowed from 
any one, and when his debts accumulated and creditors pressed, 
would have an auction in the hall of everything he possessed in 
the world, selling even his schoolbooks, candlestick, and study 
table. For weeks after one of these auctions, having rendered 
his study uninhabitable, he would live about in the fifth-form 
room and hall, doing his verses on old letter-backs and odd 
scraps of paper, and learning his lessons no one knew how. He 
never meddled with any little boy, and was popular with them, 
though they all looked on him with a sort of compassion, and 
called him ‘'poor Diggs,” not being able to resist appearances, 
or to disregard wholly even the sneers of their enemy Flash- 
man. However, he seemed equally indifferent to the sneers of 
big boys and the pity of small ones, and lived his own queer fife 
with much apparent enjoyment to himself. It is necessary to 
introduce Diggs thus particularly, as he not only did Tom and 
East good service in their present warfare, as is about to be told, 
but soon afterwards, when he got into the sixth, chose them for 
his fags, and excused them from study fagging, thereby earning 
unto himself eternal gratitude from them and all who are inter- 
ested in their history. 

And seldom had small boys more need of a friend, for the 
morning after the siege the storm burst upon the rebels in all 
its violence. Flashman laid wait, and caught Tom before sec- 
^ A coat with tails; a frock coat. 


THE WAR RAGES 


145 

ond lesson, and receiving a point-blank ‘"No” when told to fetch 
his hat, seized him and twisted his arm, and went through 
the other methods of torture in use. “He couldn’t make me 
cry, though,” as Tom said triumphantly to the rest of the rebels, 
“and I kicked his shins well, I know.” And soon it crept out 
that a lot of fags were in league, and Flashman excited his asso- 
ciates to join him in bringing the young vagabonds to their 
senses; and the house was filled with constant chasings, and 
sieges, and lickings of all sorts; and in return, the bullies’ beds 
were pulled to pieces and drenched with water, and their names 
written upon the walls with every insulting epithet which the 
fag invention could furnish. The war, in short, raged fiercely; 
but soon, as Diggs had told them, all the better fellows in the 
fifth gave up trying to fag them, and public feeling began to set 
against Flashman and his two or three intimates, and they were 
obliged to keep their doings more secret, but, being thorough 
bad fellows, missed no opportunity of torturing in private. 
Flashman was an adept in all ways, but above all in the power 
of saying cutting and cruel things, and could often bring tears 
to the eyes of boys in this way which all the thrashings in the 
world wouldn’t have wrung from them. 

And as his operations were being cut short in other directions, 
he now devoted himself chiefly to Tom and East, who lived at 
his own door, and would force himself into their study whenever 
he found a chance, and sit there, sometimes alone, sometimes 
with a companion, interrupting all their work, and exulting in 
the evident pain which every now and then he could see he was 
inflicting on one or the other. 

The storm had cleared the air for the rest of the house, and a 
better state of things now began there than had been since old 
Brooke had left; but an angry dark spot of thundercloud still 
hung over the end of the passage where Flashman’s study and 
that of East and Tom lay. 

He felt that they had been the first rebels, and that the rebel- 
lion had been to a great extent successful; but what above all 
stirred the hatred and bitterness of his heart against them was 


THE LAST COMBATANTS 


146 

that in the frequent collisions which there had been of late, they 
had openly called him coward and sneak — the taunts were too 
true to be forgiven. While he was in the act of thrashing them, 
they would roar out instances of his funking at football, or shirk- 
ing some encounter with a lout of half his own size. These 
things were all well enough known in the house; but to have his 
disgrace shouted out by small boys, to feel that they despised 
him, to be unable to silence them by any amount of torture, and 
to see the open laugh and sneer of his own associates (who were 
looking on, and took no trouble to hide their scorn from him, 
though they neither interfered with his bullying nor lived a bit 
the less intimately with him), made him beside himself. Come 
what might, he would make those boys’ lives miserable. So 
the strife settled down into a personal affair between Flashman 
and our youngsters; a war to the knife, to be fought out in the 
little cockpit at the end of the bottom passage. 

Flashman, be it said, was about seventeen years old, and big 
and strong of his age. He played well at all games where pluck 
wasn’t much wanted, and managed generally to keep up ap- 
pearances where it was; and having a bluff, off-hand manner, 
which passed for heartiness, and considerable powers of being 
pleasant when he liked, went down with the school in general 
for a good fellow enough. Even in the Schoolhouse, by dint of 
his command of money, the constant supply of good things 
which he kept up, and his adroit toadyism, he had managed to 
make himself not only tolerated, but rather popular amongst 
his own contemporaries; although young Brooke scarcely spoke 
to him, and one or two others of the right sort showed their 
opinions of him whenever a chance offered. But the wrong sort 
happened to be in the ascendant just now, and so Flashman 
was a formidable enemy for small boys. This soon became plain 
enough. Flashman left no slander unspoken and no deed un- 
done, which could in any way hurt his victims or isolate them 
from the rest of the house. One by one most of the other rebels 
fell away from them, while Flashman’s cause prospered, and 
several other fifth-form boys began to look black at them and 


DIGGS^ BANKRUPTCY 147 

illtreat them as they passed about the house. By keeping out 
of bounds, or at all events out of the house and quadrangle, all 
day, and carefully barring themselves in at night. East and Tom 
managed to hold on without feeling very miserable; but it was 
as much as they could do. Greatly were they drawn then to- 
wards old Diggs, who, in an uncouth way, began to take a good 
deal of notice of them, and once or twice came to their study 
when Flashman was there, who immediately decamped in con- 
sequence. The boys thought that Diggs must have been watch- 
ing. 

When, therefore, about this time, an auction was one night 
announced to take place in the hall, at which, amongst the 
superfluities of other boys, all Diggs’ Penates ^ for the time being 
were going to the hammer. East and Tom laid their heads to- 
gether, and resolved to devote their ready cash (some four shil- 
lings sterling) to redeem such articles as that sum would cover. 
Accordingly, they duly attended to bid, and Tom became the 
owner of two lots of Diggs’ things: lot i, price one-and- three 
pence, consisting (as the auctioneer remarked) of a “ valuable 
assortment of old metals,” in the shape of a mouse- trap, a cheese- 
toaster without a handle, and a saucepan; lot 2, of a villainous, 
dirty tablecloth and green baize curtain; while East, for one- 
and-sixpence, purchased a leather paper-case, with a lock but no 
key, once handsome, but now much the worse for wear. But 
they had still the point to settle, of how to get Diggs to take the 
things without hurting his feelings. This they solved by leav- 
ing them in his study, which was never locked when he was out. 
Diggs, who had attended the auction, remembered who had 
bought the lots, and came to their study soon after, and sat 
silent for some time, cracking his great red finger joints. Then 
he laid hold of their verses,^ and began looking over and altering 
them, and at last got up, and, turning his back to them, said, 
‘‘You’re uncommon good-hearted little beggars, you two — I 

1 The household gods of the Romans.^ Here the word refers to the espe- 
cially cherished private possessions of Diggs. 

2 In English public schools boys are required to compose verses in Latin. 


THE DERBY LOTTERY 


148 

value that paper-case, my sister gave it me last holidays — I 
won’t forget”; and so tumbled out into the passage, leaving 
them somewhat embarrassed, but not sorry that he knew what 
they had done. 

The next morning was Saturday, the day on which the al- 
lowances of one shilling a week were paid, an important event 
to spendthrift youngsters; and great was the disgust amongst the 
small fry to hear that all the allowances had been impounded ^ 
for the Derby ^ lottery. That great event in the English year, the 
Derby, was celebrated at Rugby in those days by many lotteries. 
It was not an improving custom, I own, gentle reader, and led 
to making books and betting and other objectionable results; 
but when our great Houses of Palaver ^ think it right to stop the 
nation’s business on that day, and many of the members bet 
heavily themselves, can you blame us boys for following the 
example of our betters? — at any rate we did follow it. First, 
there was the great school lottery, where the first prize was six 
or seven pounds; then each house had one or more separate 
lotteries. These were all nominally voluntary, no boy being 
compelled to put in his shilling who didn’t choose to do so, but 
besides Flashman, there were three or four other fast sporting 
young gentlemen in the Schoolhouse, who considered subscrip- 
tion a matter of duty and necessity; and so, to make their duty 
come easy to the small boys, quietly secured the allowances in 
a lump when given out for distribution, and kept them. It was 
no use grumbhng — so many fewer tartlets and apples were eaten 
and fives’-balls bought on that Saturday; and after locking-up, 
when the money would otherwise have been spent, consolation 
was carried to many a small boy by the sound of the night- 
fags shouting along the passages, “Gentlemen sportsmen of 
the Schoolhouse, the lottery’s going to be drawn in the hall.” 
It was pleasant to be called a gentleman sportsman — also to 
have a chance of drawing a favorite horse. 

^ Held in custody. 

2 The greatest horse-racing event in England is called the Derby. 

^ The Houses of Parliament; they do not hold sessions on Derby Day. 


GENTLEMEN SPORTSMEN 


149 

The hall was full of boys, and at the head of one of the long 
tables stood the sporting interest, with a hat before them, in 
which were the tickets folded up. One of them then began calling 
out the list of the house; each boy as his name was called drew a 
ticket from the hat and opened it; and most of the bigger boys, 
after drawing, left the hall directly to go back to their studies 
or the fifth-form room. The sporting interest had all drawn 
blanks, and they were sulky accordingly; neither of the favorites 
had yet been drawn, and it had come down to the upper fourth. 
So now, as each small boy came up and drew his ticket, it was 
seized and opened by Flashman, or some other of the standers- 
by. But no great favorite is drawn until it comes to the Tad- 
pole’s turn; and he shuffies up and draws, and tries to make 
off, but is caught, and his ticket is opened like the rest. 

“Here you are! Wanderer! the third favorite,” shouts the 
opener. 

“I say, just give me my ticket, please,” remonstrates Tadpole. 

“Hullo, don’t be in a hurry,” breaks in Flashman; “what’ll 
you sell Wanderer for, now?” 

“I don’t want to sell,” rejoins Tadpole. 

“Oh, don’t you! Now listen, you young fool — ^you don’t know 
anything about it; the horse is no use to you. He won’t win, 
but I want him as a hedge. ^ Now I’ll give you half a crown 
for him.” Tadpole holds out, but between threats and cajoleries 
at length sells half for one shilling and sixpence, about a fifth 
of its fair market value; however, he is glad to realize anything, 
and as he wisely remarks, “Wanderer mayn’t win, and the tizzy ^ 
is safe anyhow.” 

East presently comes up and draws a blank. Soon after comes 
Tom’s turn; his ticket, like the others, is seized and opened. 
“Here you are then,” shouts the opener, holding it up, “Hark- 
away! By Jove, Flashey, your young friend’s in luck.” 

‘ A term in betting, signifying a minor bet against the contingency on 
which a larger wager has previously been placed. 

2 A slang term for sixpence, used here to denote the one shilling and six- 
pence just referred to in the text. 


TOM DRAWS THE FAVORITE 


150 

“Give me the ticket,” says Flashman with an oath, leaning 
across the table with open hand, and his face black with rage. 

“Wouldn’t you like it?” replies the opener, not a bad fellow 
at the bottom, and no admirer of Flashman’s. “Here, Brown, 
catch hold,” and he hands the ticket to Tom, who pockets it; 
whereupon Flashman makes for the door at once, that Tom and 
the ticket may not escape, and there keeps watch until the draw- 
ing is over and all the boys are gone, except the sporting set 
of five or six, who stay to compare books, make bets, and so on, 
Tom, who doesn’t choose to move while Flashman is at the door, 
and East, who stays by his friend, anticipating trouble. 

The sporting set now gathered round Tom. Public opinion 
wouldn’t allow them actually to rob him of his ticket, but any 
humbug or intimidation by which he could be driven to sell the 
whole or part at an under value was lawful. 

“Now, young Brown, come, what’ll you sell me Harkaway 
for? I hear he isn’t going to start. I’ll give you five shillings for 
him,” begins the boy who had opened the ticket. Tom, re- 
membering his good deed, and moreover in his forlorn state 
wishing to make a friend, is about to accept the offer, when 
another cries out, “I’ll give you seven shillings.” Tom hesi- 
tated, and looked from one to the other. 

“No, no!” said Flashman, pushing in, “leave me to deal with 
him; we’ll draw lots for it afterwards. Now, sir, you know me — 
you’ll sell Harkaway to us for five shillings, or you’ll repent it.” 

“I won’t sell a bit of him,” answered Tom shortly. 

“You hear that now!” said Flashman, turning to the others. 
“He’s the coxiest ^ young blackguard in the house — I always 
told you so. We’re to have all the trouble and risk of getting 
up the lotteries for the benefit of such fellows as he.” 

Flashman forgets to explain what risk they ran, but he speaks 
to willing ears. Gambling makes boys selfish and cruel as well as 
men. 

“That’s true — ^we always draw blanks,” cried one. “Now, 
sir, you shall sell half, at any rate.” 

^ Boldest, most impudent. 


ROASTING A FAG 15 1 

“I won’t,” said Tom, flushing up to his hair, and lumping 
them all in his mind with his sworn enemy. 

“Very well, then, let’s roast him,” cried Flashman, and 
catches hold of Tom by the collar; one or two boys hesitate, 
but the rest join in. East seizes Tom’s arm and tries to pull 
him away, but is knocked back by one of the boys, and Tom 
is dragged along struggling. His shoulders are pushed against 
the mantlepiece, and he is held by main force before the fire, 
Flashman drawing his trousers tight by way of extra torture. 
Poor East, in more pain even than Tom, suddenly thinks of 
Diggs, and darts off to find him. “Will you sell now for ten 
shillings?” says one boy who is relenting. 

Tom only answers by groans and struggles. 

“I say, Flashey, he has had enough,” says the same boy, 
dropping the arm he holds. 

“No, no, another turn’ll do it,” answers Flashman. But 
poor Tom is done already, turns deadly pale, and his head falls 
forward on his breast, just as Diggs, in frantic excitement, 
rushes into the hall with East at his heels. 

“You cowardly brutes!” is all he can say, as he catches Tom 
from them and supports him to the hall table. “Good God! 
he’s dying. Here, get some cold water — run for the house- 
keeper.” 

Flashman and one or two others slink away; the rest, ashamed 
and sorry, bend over Tom or run for water, while East darts 
off for the housekeeper. Water comes, and they throw it on his 
hands and face, and he begins to come to. “Mother!” — the 
words came feebly and slowly — “it’s very cold to-night.” 
Poor old Diggs is blubbering like a child. “Where am I?” 
goes on Tom, opening his eyes. “Ah! I remember now,” and he 
shut his eyes again and groaned. 

“I say,” is whispered, “we can’t do any good, and the house- 
keeper will be here in a minute,” and all but one steal away; 
he stays with Diggs, silent and sorrowful, and fans Tom’s face. 

The housekeeper comes in with strong salts, and Tom soon 
recovers enough to sit up. There is a smell of burning; she ex- 


152 A STANCH LITTLE FELLOW 

amines his clothes, and looks up inquiringly. The boys are 
silent. 

“How did he come so? ” No answer. 

“There’s been some bad work here,” she adds, looking very 
serious, “and I shall speak to the Doctor about it.” Still no 
answer. 

“Hadn’t we better carry him to the sick room?” suggests 
Diggs. 

“Oh, I can walk now,” says Tom; and supported by East 
and the housekeeper, goes to the sick room. The boy who held 
his ground is soon amongst the rest, who are all in fear of their 
lives. “ Did he peach? ” “Does she know about it?” 

“Not a word — he’s a stanch little fellow.” And pausing a 
moment, he adds, “I’m sick of this work; what brutes we’ve 
been!” 

Meantime, Tom is stretched on the sofa in the housekeeper’s 
room, with East by his side, while she gets wine and water and 
other restoratives. 

“Are you much hurt, dear old boy?” whispers East. 

“Only the back of my legs,” answers Tom. They are indeed 
badly scorched, and part of his trousers burned through. But 
soon he is in bed with cold bandages. At first, he feels broken, 
and thinks of writing home and getting taken away; and the 
verse of a hymn he had learned years ago sings through his head, 
and he goes to sleep, murmuring, — 

“ Where the wicked cease from troubling. 

And the weary are at rest.” 

But after a sound night’s rest, the old boy-spirit comes back 
again. East comes in reporting that the whole house is with 
him, and he forgets everything except their old resolve, never 
to be beaten by that bully Flashman. 

Not a word could the housekeeper extract from either of 
them, and though the Doctor knew all that she knew that 
morning, he never knew any more. 

I trust and believe that such scenes are not possible now at 


A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 153 

school, and that lotteries and betting books have gone out; 
but I am writing of schools as they were in our time, and must 
give the evil with the good. 

CHAPTER IX 

A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 

“ Wherein I [speak] of most disastrous chances, 

Of moving accidents by flood and field, 

Of hair-breadth ’scapes.” 

Shakespeare. 

When Tom came back into school after a couple of days 
in the sick room, he found matters much changed for the 
better, as East had led him to expect. Flashman’s brutality 
had disgusted most even of his intimate friends, and his coward- 
ice had once more been made plain to the house; for Diggs had 
encountered him on the morning after the lottery, and after 
high words on both sides had struck him, and the blow was not 
returned. However, Flashey was not unused to this sort of 
thing, and had lived through as awkward affairs before, and, as 
Diggs had said, fed and toadied himself back into favor again. 
Two or three of the boys who had helped to roast Tom came up 
and begged his pardon, and thanked him for not telling anything. 
Morgan sent for him, and was inclined to take the matter up 
warmly, but Tom begged him not to do it; to which he agreed 
on Tom’s promising to come to him at once in future — a 
promise which I regret to say he didn’t keep. Tom kept Harka- 
way all to himself, and won the second prize in the lottery, some 
thirty shillings, which he and East contrived to spend in about 
three days, in the purchase of pictures for their study, two new 
bats and a cricket ball, all the best that could be got, and a 
supper of sausages, kidneys, and beefsteak pies to all the rebels. 
Light come, light go; they wouldn’t have been comfortable with 
money in their pockets in the middle of the half. 

The embers of Flashman’s wrath, however, were still smolder- 
ing, and burst out every now and then in sly blows and taunts, 


RULE BREAKING 


154 

and they both felt that they hadn’t quite done with him yet. 
It wasn’t long, however, before the last act of that drama came, 
and with it the end of bullying for Tom and East at Rugby. 
They now often stole out into the hall at nights, incited thereto 
partly by the hope of finding Diggs there, and having a talk 
with him, partly by the excitement of doing something which 
was against rules; for, sad to say, both of our youngsters, since 
their loss of character for steadiness in their form, had got into 
the habit of doing things which were forbidden, as a matter of 
adventure; just in the same way, I should fancy, as men fall 
into smuggling, and for the same sort of reasons. Thought- 
lessness in the first place. It never occurred to them to con- 
sider why such and such rules were laid down — the reason was 
nothing to them — and they only looked upon rules as a sort 
of challenge from the rule-makers, which it would be rather bad 
pluck in them not to accept; and then again, in the lower parts 
of the school they hadn’t enough to do. The work of the form 
they could manage to get through pretty easily, keeping a good 
enough place to get their regular yearly remove; and not having 
much ambition beyond this, their whole superfluous steam was 
available for games and scrapes. Now, one rule of the house, 
which it was a daily pleasure of all such boys to break, was 
that after supper all fags, except the three on duty in the pas- 
sages, should remain in their own studies until nine o’clock; 
and if caught about the passages or hall, or in one another’s 
studies, they were liable to punishments or caning. The rule 
was stricter than its observance; for most of the sixth spent 
their evenings in the fifth-form room, where the library was, 
and the lessons were learned in common. Every now and then, 
however, a praepostor would be seized with a fit of district 
visiting, and would make a tour of the passages and hall and the 
fags’ studies. Then, if the owner were entertaining a friend or 
two, the first kick at the door and ominous “Open here” had 
the effect of the shadow of a hawk over a chicken yard; every 
one cut to cover — one small boy diving under the sofa, another 
under the table, while the owner would hastily pull down a 


THE BRUISED WORM WILL TURN 155 

book or two and open them, and cry out in a meek voice, “Hullo, 
who’s there? ” casting an anxious eye round, to see that no pro- 
truding leg or elbow could betray the hidden boys. “Open, 
sir, directly; it’s Snooks.” “Oh, I’m very sorry; I didn’t know 
it was you, Snooks ”; and then, with well-feigned zeal the door 
would be opened, young Hopeful praying that that beast 
Snooks mightn’t have heard the scuffle caused by his coming. 
If a study was empty, Snooks proceeded to draw the passages 
and hall to find the truants. 

Well, one evening, in forbidden hours, Tom and East were in 
the hall. They occupied the seats before the fire nearest the 
door, while Diggs sprawled as usual before the farther fire. 
He was busy with a copy of verses, and East and Tom were 
chatting together in whispers by the light of the fire, and splicing 
a favorite old fives’-bat which had sprung. Presently a step 
came down the bottom passage; they listened a moment, as- 
sured themselves that it wasn’t a praepostor, and then went on 
with their work, and the door swung open, and in walked Flash- 
man. He didn’t see Diggs, and thought it a good chance to 
keep his hand in; and as the boys didn’t move for him, struck 
one of them, to make them get out of his way. 

“What’s that for?” growled the assaulted one. 

“Because I choose. You’ve no business here; go to your 
study.” 

“You can’t send us.” 

“ Can’t I? Then I’ll thrash you if you stay,” said Flashman 
savagely. 

“I say, you two,” said Diggs, from the end of the hall, rous- 
ing up and resting himself on his elbow, “you’ll never get rid 
of that fellow till you lick him. Go in at him, both of you— 
I’ll see fair play.” 

Flashman was taken aback, and retreated two steps. East 
looked at Tom. “Shall we try?” said he. “Yes,” said Tom 
desperately. So the two advanced on Flashman, with clenched 
fists and beating hearts. They were about up to his shoulder, 
but tough boys of their age, and in perfect training; while he, 


156 ACCOUNTS SQUARED WITH FLASHMAN 

though strong and big, was in poor condition from his monstrous 
habits of stuffing and want of exercise. Coward as he was, 
however, Flashman couldn’t swallow such an insult as this; 
besides, he was confident of having easy work, and so faced the 
boys, saying, ‘‘You impudent young blackguards!” Before he 
could finish his abuse they rushed in on him, and began pom- 
meling at all of him which they could reach. He hit out wildly 
and savagely, but the full force of his blows didn’t tell, they were 
too near him. It was long odds, though, in point of strength, 
and in another minute Tom went spinning backwards over a 
form, and Flashman turned to demolish East, with a savage 
grin. But now Diggs jumped down from the table on which he 
had seated himself. “Stop there,” shouted he, “the round’s 
over — ^half-minute time allowed.” 

“What the — ^is it to you?” faltered Flashman, who began to 
lose heart. 

“I’m going to see fair, I tell you,” said Diggs with a grin, and 
snapping his great red fingers; “’t ain’t fair for you to' be fight- 
ing one of them at a time. Are you ready. Brown? Time’s up.” 

The small boys rushed in again. Closing they saw was their 
best chance, and Flashman was wilder and more flurried than 
ever; he caught East by the throat, and tried to force him back 
on the iron-bound table; Tom grasped his waist, remembering 
the old throw he had learned in the Vale from Harry Winburn, 
crooked his leg inside Flashman’s, and threw his whole weight 
forward. The three tottered for a moment, and then over they 
went on to the floor, Flashman striking his head against a form 
in the hall. 

The two youngsters sprang to their legs, but he lay there still. 
They began to be frightened. Tom stooped down, and then 
cried out, scared out of his wits, “He’s bleeding awfully; come 
here. East, Diggs, — ^he’s dying!” 

“Not he,” said Diggs, getting leisurely off the table; “it’s 
all sham — ^he’s only afraid to fight it out.” 

East was as frightened as Tom. Diggs lifted Flashman’s 
head, and he groaned. 


ACCOUNTS SQUARED WITH FLASHMAN 157 

‘‘What’s the matter?” shouted Diggs. 

“My skull’s fractured,” sobbed Flashman. 

“Oh, let me run for the housekeeper,” cried Tom. “What 
shall we do?” 

“Fiddlesticks! it’s nothing but the skin broken,” said the 
relentless Diggs, feeling his head. “Cold water and a bit of 
rag ’s all he’ll want.” 

“Let me go,” said Flashman surlily, sitting up; “I don’t 
want your help.” 

“We’re really very sorry,” began East. 

“Hang your sorrow,” answered Flashman, holding his hand- 
kerchief to the place; “you shall pay for this, I can tell you, 
both of you.” And he walked out of the hall. 

“He can’t be very bad,” said Tom, with a deep sigh, much 
relieved to see his enemy march so well. 

“Not he,” said Diggs, “and you’ll see you won’t be troubled 
with him any more. But, I say, your head’s broken, too— your 
collar is covered with blood.” 

“Is it, though?” said Tom, putting up his hand; “I didn’t 
know it.” 

“Well, mop it up, or you’ll have your jacket spoiled. And 
you have got a nasty eye, Scud; you’d better go and bathe it well 
in cold water.” 

“Cheap enough, too, if we’ve done with our old friend 
Flashey,” said East, as they made off upstairs to bathe their 
wounds. 

They had done with Flashman in one sense, for he never laid 
finger on either of them again; but whatever harm a spiteful 
heart and venomous tongue could do them, he took care should 
be done. Only throw dirt enough, and some of it is sure to stick; 
and so it was with the fifth form and the bigger boys in general, 
with whom he associated more or less, and they not at all. Flash- 
man managed to get Tom and East into disfavor, which did not 
wear off for some time after the author of it had disappeared 
from the school world. This event, much prayed for by the 
small fry in general, took place a few months after the above 


PENALTIES OF WAR 


158 

encounter. One fine summer evening Flashman had been re- 
galing himself on gin-punch, at Brownsover; and having ex- 
ceeded his usual limits, started home uproarious. He fell in 
with a friend or two coming back from bathing, proposed a 
glass of beer, to which they assented, the weather being hot 
and they thirsty souls, and unaware of the quantity of drink 
which Flashman had already on board. The short result was, 
that Flashey became beastly drunk; they tried to get him along, 
but couldn’t; so they chartered a hurdle and two men to carry 
him. One of the masters came upon them, and they naturally 
enough fled. The flight of the rest raised the master’s suspicions, 
and the good angel of the fags incited him to examine the freight, 
and, after examination, to convoy the hurdle himself up to the 
Schoolhouse; and the Doctor, who had long had his eye on Flash- 
man, arranged for his withdrawal next morning. 

The evil that men, and boys, too, do, lives after them: ” Flash- 
man was gone, but our boys, as hinted above, still felt the effects 
of his hate. Besides, they had been the movers of the strike 
against unlawful fagging. The cause was righteous, the result 
had been triumphant to a great extent; but the best of the fifth, 
even those who had never fagged the small boys or had given 
up the practice cheerfully, couldn’t help feeling a small grudge 
against the first rebels. After all, their form had been defied — 
on just grounds, no doubt; so just, indeed, that they had at 
once acknowledged the wrong, and remained passive in the 
strife; had they sided with Flashman and his set, the rebels 
must have given way at once. They couldn’t help, on the whole, 
being glad that they had so acted, and that the resistance had 
been successful against such of their own form as had shown 
fight; they felt that law and order had gained thereby, but the 
ringleaders they couldn’t pardon at once. “Confoundedly 
coxy those young rascals will get, if we don’t mind,” was the 
general feeling. 

So it is, and must be always, my dear boys. If the Angel 
Gabriel were to come down from heaven, and head a successful 
rise against the most abominable and unrighteous vested in- 


FATE OF LIBERATORS 


159 

terest which this poor old world groans under, he would most 
certainly lose his character for many years, probably for cen- 
turies, not only with upholders of said vested interest, but 
with the respectable mass of the people whom he had delivered. 
They wouldn’t ask him to dinner, or let their names appear 
with his in the papers; they would be very careful how they 
spoke of him in the Palaver or at their clubs. What can we 
expect, then, when we have only poor, gallant, blundering men 
like Kossuth, Garibaldi, Mazzini,” and righteous causes which 
do not triumph in their hands; men who have holes enough in 
their armor, God knows, easy to be hit by respectabilities sitting 
in their lounging chairs, and having large balances at their 
bankers’? But you are brave, gallant boys, who hate easy- 
chairs, and have no balances or bankers. You only want to 
have your heads set straight to take the right side; so bear 
in mind that majorities, especially respectable ones, are nine 
times out of ten in the wrong; and that if you see a man or boy 
striving earnestly on the weak side, however wrong-headed or 
blundering he may be, you are not to go and join the cry against 
him. If you can’t join him and help him, and make him wiser, 
at any rate remember that he has found something in the world 
which he will fight and suffer for, which is just what you have 
got to do for yourselves; and so think and speak of him tenderly. 

So East and Tom, the Tadpole and one or two more, became 
a sort of young Ishmaelites, their hands against every one, and 
every one’s hand against them. It has been already told how 
they got to war with the masters and the fifth form, and with the 
sixth it was much the same. They saw the praepostors cowed 
by or joining with the fifth, and shirking their own duties, so 
they didn’t respect them and rendered no willing obedience. 
It had been one thing to clean out studies for sons of heroes like 
old Brooke, but was quite another to do the like for Snooks 
and Green, who had never faced a good scrummage at football, 
and couldn’t keep the passages in order at night. So they only 
slurred through their fagging just well enough to escape a licking, 
and not always that, and got the character of sulky, unwilling 


i6o 


THE ISHMAELITES 


fags. In the fifth-form room, after supper, when such matters 
were often discussed and arranged, their names were forever 
coming up. 

“I say, Green,” Snooks began one night, “isn’t that new boy, 
Harrison, your fag?” 

“Yes, why?” 

“Oh, I know something of him at home, and should like to 
excuse him — will you swop?” 

“Who, will you give me?” 

“Well, let’s see, there’s Willis, Johnson — No, that won’t do. 
Yes, I have it — there’s young East, I’ll give you him.” 

“Don’t you wish you may get it?” replied Green. “I’ll 
tell you what I’ll do — I’ll give you two for Willis, if you like.” 

“Who then?” asks Snooks. 

“Hall and Brown.” 

“Wouldn’t have ’em at a gift.” 

“Better than East, though; for they ain’t quite so sharp,” 
said Green, getting up and leaning his back against the mantle- 
piece — he wasn’t a bad fellow, and couldn’t help not being 
able to put down the unruly fifth form. His eye twinkled as he 
went on, “Did I ever tell you how the young vagabond sold me 
last half?” 

“No — how?” 

“Well, he never half cleaned my study out, only just stuck 
the candlesticks in the cupboard, and swept the crumbs onto the 
floor. So at last I was mortal angry, and had him up, made him 
go through the whole performance under my eyes; the dust the 
young scamp made nearly choked me, and showed that he 
hadn’t swept the carpet before, Well, when it was all finished, 
‘Now, young gentleman,’ says I, ‘mind, I expect this to be done 
every morning, floor swept, tablecloth taken off and shaken, 
and everything dusted.’ ‘Very well,’ grunts he. Not a bit of it, 
though — I was quite sure in a day or two that he never took 
the tablecloth off even. So I laid a trap for him : I tore up some 
paper and put half a dozen bits, on my table one night, and the 
cloth over them as usual. Next morning, after breakfast, up I 


THE ISHMAELITES i6i 

came, pulled off the cloth, and sure enough, there was the paper, 
which fluttered down on to the floor. I was in a towering rage. 
‘IVe got you now,’ thought I, and sent for him, while I got out 
my cane. Up he came as cool as you please, with his hands in his 
pockets. ‘Didn’t I tell you to shake my tablecloth every morn- 
ing?’ roared I. ‘Yes,’ says he. ‘Did you do it this morning?’ 
‘Yes.’ ‘You young liar! I put these pieces of paper on the 
table last night, and if you’d taken the tablecloth off you’d have 
seen them, so I’m going to give you a good licking.’ Then my 
youngster takes one hand out of his pocket, and just stoops down 
and picks up two of the bits of paper, and holds them out to me. 
There was written on each, in great round text, ‘Harry East, 
his mark.’ The young rogue had found my trap out, taken away 
my paper, and put some of his there, every bit ear-marked. 
I’d a great mind to lick him for his impudence, but after all one 
has no right to be laying traps, so I didn’t. Of course I was at 
his mercy till the end of the half, and in his weeks my study 
was so frowzy I couldn’t sit in it.” 

“They spoil one’s things so, too,” chimed in a third boy. 
“Hall and Brown were night-fags last week; I called fag, and 
gave them my candlesticks to clean; away they went, and didn’t 
appear again. When they’d had time enough to clean them three 
times over, I went out to look after them. They weren’t in the 
passages, so down I went into the hall, where I heard music, 
and there I found them sitting on the table, listening to Johnson, 
who was playing the flute, and my candlesticks stuck between 
the bars well into the fire, red-hot, clean spoiled; they’ve never 
stood straight since, and I must get some more. However, I 
gave them both a good licking, that’s one comfort.” 

Such were the sort of scrapes they were always getting into; 
and so, partly by their own faults, partly from circumstances, 
partly from the faults of others, they found themselves outlaws, 
ticket-of-leave ^ men, or what you will in that line; in short, 
dangerous parties, and lived the sort of hand-to-mouth, wild, 
reckless life which such parties generally have to put up with. 

1 Paroled prisoners. 


MISFORTUNE THICKENS 


162 

Nevertheless, they never quite lost favor with young Brooke, 
who was now the cock of the house, and just getting into the 
sixth, and Diggs stuck to them like a man, and gave them store of 
good advice, by which they never in the least profited. 

And even after the house mended, and law and order had been 
restored, which soon happened after young Brooke and Diggs 
got into the sixth, they couldn’t easily or at once return into the 
paths of steadiness, and many of the wild out-of-bounds habits 
stuck to them as firmly as ever. While they had been quite 
little boys, the scrapes they got into in the schools hadn’t much 
mattered to any one; but now they were in the upper school, 
all wrong-doers from which were sent up straight to the Doctor at 
once; so they began to come under his notice, and as they were a 
sort of leaders in a small way amongst their own contemporaries, 
his eye, which was everywhere, was upon them. 

It was a toss-up whether they turned out well or ill, and so they 
were just the boys who caused most anxiety to such a master. 
You have been told of the first occasion on which they were sent 
up to the Doctor, and the remembrance of it was so pleasant 
that they had much less fear of him than most boys of their 
standing had. ‘‘It’s all his look,” Tom used to say to East, 
“that frightens fellows; don’t you remember, he never said any- 
thing to us my first half year for being an hour late for locking- 
up?” 

The next time that Tom came before him, however, the in- 
terview was of a very different kind. It happened just about 
the time at which we have now arrived, and was the first 
of a series of scrapes into which our hero managed now to 
tumble. 

The river Avon at Rugby is a slow and not very clear stream, 
in which chub, dace, roach, and other coarse fish are (or were) 
plentiful enough, together with a fair sprinkling of small jack, but 
no fish worth sixpence either for sport or food. It is, however, 
a capital river for bathing, as it has many nice small pools and 
several good reaches for swimming, all within about a mile of 
one another, and at an easy twenty minutes’ walk from the 


DISPUTED RIGHTS OF FISHING 163 

school. This mile of water is rented, or used to be rented, for 
bathing purposes, by the trustees of the school, for the boys. 
The footpath to Brownsover crosses the river by “the Planks,” 
a curious old single-plank bridge, running for fifty or sixty yards 
into the flat meadows on each side of the river — for in the winter 
there are frequent floods. Above the Planks were the bathing 
places for the smaller boys; Sleath’s, the first bathing place 
where all new boys had to begin, until they had proved to the 
bathing men (three steady individuals who were paid to attend 
daily through the summer to prevent accidents) that they 
could swim pretty decently, when they were allowed to go on 
to Anstey’s, about one hundred and fifty yards below. Here 
there was a hole about six feet deep and twelve feet across, over 
which the puffing urchins struggled to the opposite side, and 
thought no small beer of themselves for having been out of their 
depths. Below the Planks came larger and deeper holes, the 
first of which was Wratislaw’s, and the last Swift’s, a famous 
hole, ten or twelve feet deep in parts, and thirty yards across, 
from which there was a fine swimming reach right down to the 
mill. Swift’s was reserved for the sixth and fifth forms, and had 
a springboard and two sets of steps; the others had one set of 
steps each, and were used indifferently by all the lower boys, 
though each house addicted itself more to one hole than to an- 
other. The Schoolhouse at this time affected Wratislaw’s hole, 
and Tom and East, who had learned to swim like fishes, were to 
be found there as regular as the clock through the summer, al- 
ways twice, and often three times a day. 

Now the boys either had, or fancied they had, a right also to 
fish at their pleasure over the whole of this part of the river, 
and would not understand that the right (if any) only extended 
to the Rugby side. As ill luck would have it, the gentleman who 
owned the opposite bank, after allowing it for some time without 
interference, had ordered his keepers not to let the boys fish on 
his side; the consequence of which had been, that there had been 
first wranglings and then fights between the keepers and boys; 
and so keen had the quarrel become, that the landlord and his 


i 64 disputed rights of fishing 

keepers, after a ducking had been inflicted on one of the latter, 
and a fierce fight ensued thereon, had been up to the great school 
at calling-over to identify the delinquents, and it was all the 
Doctor himself and five or six masters could do to keep the peace. 
Not even his authority could prevent the hissing, and so strong 
was the feeling, that the four praepostors of the week walked up 
the school with their canes, shouting s-s-s-s-i-lenc-c-c-c-e at the 
top of their voices. However, the chief offenders for the time 
were flogged and kept in bounds, but the victorious party had 
brought a nice hornet’s nest about their ears. The landlord was 
hissed at the school gates as he rode past, and when he charged 
his horse at the mob of boys, and tried to thrash them with his 
whip, was driven back by cricket bats and wickets, and pursued 
with pebbles and fives’-balls; while the wretched keepers’ lives 
were a burden to them, from having to watch the waters so 
closely. 

The Schoolhouse boys of Tom’s standing, one and all, as a 
protest against this tyranny and cutting short of their lawful 
amusements, took to fishing in all ways, and especially by means 
of night lines. The little tackle maker at the bottom of the town 
would soon have made his fortune had the rage lasted, and 
several of the barbers began to lay in fishing tackle. The boys 
had this great advantage over their enemies, that they spent a 
large portion of the day in nature’s garb by the riverside, and so, 
when tired of swimming, would get out on the other side and fish, 
or set night lines till the keeper hove in sight, and then plunge 
in and swim back and mix with the other bathers, and the keep- 
ers were too wise to follow across the stream. 

While things were in this state, one day Tom and three or four 
others were bathing at Wratislaw’s, and had, as a matter of 
course, been taking up and resetting night lines. They had 
all left the water, and were sitting or standing about at their 
toilets, in all costumes from a shirt upwards, when they were 
aware of a man in a velveteen shooting coat approaching from the 
other side. He was a new keeper, so they didn’t recognize or 
notice him till he pulled up right opposite, and began, — 


CHAFFING A KEEPER 165 

“I see’d some of you young gentlemen over this side a-fishing 
just now.’’ 

“Hullo, who are you? what business is that of yours, old 
Velveteens? ” 

“I’m the new under-keeper, and master’s told me to keep 
a sharp lookout on all o’ you young chaps. And I tells’ee I 
means business, and you’d better keep on your own side, or we 
shall fall out.” 

“Well, that’s right, Velveteens — speak out, and let’s know 
your mind at once.” 

“Look here, old boy,” cried East, holding up a miserable 
coarse fish or two and a small jack, “would you like to smell 
’em and see which bank they lived under?” 

“I’ll give you a bit of advice, keeper,” shouted Tom, who was 
sitting in his shirt paddling with his feet in the river; “you’d 
better go down there to Swift’s, where the big boys are; they’re 
beggars at setting lines, and ’ll put you up to a wrinkle or two 
for catching the five-pounders.” Tom was nearest to the keeper, 
and that officer, who was getting angry at the chaff, fixed his 
eyes on our hero, as if to take a note of him for future use. Tom 
returned his gaze with a steady stare, and then broke into a laugh, 
and struck into the middle of a favorite Schoolhouse song, — 

I and my companions 
Were setting of a snare, 

The gamekeeper was watching us, 

For him we did not care: 

For we can wrestle and fight, my boys. 

And jump out anywhere. 

For it’s my delight of a likely night, 

In the season of the year.’” 

The chorus was taken up by the other boys with shouts of 
laughter, and the keeper turned away with a grunt, but evidently 
bent on mischief. The boys thought no more of the matter. 

But now came on the May-fly season; the soft hazy summer 
weather lay sleepily along the rich meadows by Avon side, and 
the green and gray flies flickered with their graceful lazy up- 
and-down flight over the reeds and the water and the meadows, 


i66 


THE MAY-FLY SEASON 


in myriads upon myriads. The May flies must surely be the 
lotus-eaters” of the ephemerae;^ the happiest, laziest, carelessest 
fly that dances and dreams out his few hours of sunshiny life 
by English rivers. 

Every little pitiful coarse fish in the Avon was on the alert 
for the flies, and gorging his wretched carcass with hundreds 
daily, the gluttonous rogues! and every lover of the gentle craft 
was out to avenge the poor May flies. 

So one fine Thursday afternoon, Tom, having borrowed East’s 
new rod, started by himself to the river. He fished for some 
time with small success; not a fish would rise at him; but, as he 
prowled along the bank, he was presently aware of mighty ones 
feeding in a pool on the opposite side, under the shade of a huge 
willow tree. The stream was deep here, but some fifty yards 
below was a shallow, for which he made off hotfoot; and for- 
getting landlords, keepers, solemn prohibitions of the Doctor, 
and everything else, pulled up his trousers, plunged across, and 
in three minutes was creeping along on all fours towards the 
clump of willows. 

It isn’t often that great chub or any other, coarse fish are in 
earnest about anything, but just then they were thoroughly 
bent on feeding; and in half an hour Master Tom had deposited 
three thumping fellows at the foot of the giant willow. As he 
was baiting for a fourth pounder, and just going to throw in 
again, he became aware of a man coming up the bank not one 
hundred yards off. Another look told him that it was the under- 
keeper. Could he reach the shallow before him? No, not carry- 
ing his rod. Nothing for it but the tree, so Tom laid his bones to 
it, shinning up as fast as he could, and dragging up his rod 
after him. He had just time to reach and crouch along upon a 
huge branch some ten feet up, which stretched out over the 
river, when the keeper arrived at the clump. Tom’s heart beat 
fast as he came under the tree; two steps more and he would 
have passed, when, as ill luck would have it, the gleam on the 
scales of the dead fish caught his eye, and he made a dead point 
* Short-lived insects. 


VELVETEENS WELL IN 


167 

at the foot of the tree. He picked up the fish one by one; his 
eye and touch told him that they had been alive and feeding 
within the hour. Tom crouched lower along the branch, and 
heard the keeper beating the clump. “If I could only get the 
rod hidden,” thought he, and began gently shifting it to get it 
alongside him; “willow trees don’t throw out straight hickory 
shoots twelve feet long, with no leaves, worse luck.” Alas! the 
keeper catches the rustle, and then a sight of the rod, and then 
of Tom’s hand and arm. 

“Oh, be up there, be ’ee?” says he, running under the tree. 
“Now you come down this minute.” 

“Tree’d at last,” thinks Tom, making no answer, and keeping 
as close as possible, but working away at the rod, which he takes 
to pieces; “ I’m in for it, unless I can starve him out.” And then 
he begins to meditate getting along the branch for a plunge, 
and scramble to the other side; but the small branches are so 
thick, and the opposite bank so difficult, that the keeper will 
have lots of time to get round by the ford before he can get out; 
so he gives that up. And now he hears the keeper beginning to 
scramble up the trunk. That will never do; so he scrambles 
himself back to where his branch joins the trunk, and stands 
with lifted rod. 

“Hullo, Velveteens, mind your fingers if you come any higher.” 

The keeper stops and looks up, and then with a grin says, 
“Oh! be you, be it, young measter? ^ Well, here’s luck. Now I 
tells ’ee to come down at once, and ’t’ll be best for ’ee.” 

“Thank’ee, Velveteens, I’m very comfortable,” said Tom, 
shortening the rod in his hand, and preparing for battle. 

“Werry well, please yourself,” says the keeper, descending, 
however, to the ground again, and taking his seat on the bank; 
“I bean’t in no hurry, so you med ^ take your time. I’ll larn ’ee 
to gee honest folk names afore I’ve done with ’ee.” 

“My luck as usual,” thinks Tom; “what a fool I was to give 
him a black. If I’d called him ‘keeper,’ now, I might get off. 
The return match is all his way.” 

^ Mister. 


2 May. 


VELVETEENS^ REVENGE 


l68 

The keeper quietly proceeded to take out his pipe, fill, and 
light it, keeping an eye on Tom, who now sat disconsolately 
across the branch, looking at keeper — a pitiful sight for men 
and fishes. The more he thought of it, the less he liked it. “It 
must be getting near second calling-over,” thinks he. Keeper 
smokes on stolidly. “If he takes me up, I shall be flogged safe 
enough. I can’t sit here all night. Wonder if he’ll rise at silver.” 

“I say, keeper,” said he meekly, “let me go for two bob?” ^ 

“Not for twenty neither,” grunts his persecutor. 

And so they sat on till long past second calling-over, and the 
sun came slanting in through the willow branches, and telling 
of locking-up near at hand. 

“I’m coming down, keeper,” said Tom at last with a sigh, 
fairly tired out. “ Now what are you going to do? ” 

“Walk ’ee up to school, and give ’ee over to the Doctor; 
them’s my orders,” says Velveteens, knocking the ashes out of 
his fourth pipe, and standing up and shaking himself. 

“Very good,” said Tom; “ but hands off, you know. I’ll go 
with you quietly, so no collaring or that sort of thing.” 

Keeper looked at him a minute. “Werry good,” said he at 
last; and so Tom descended, and wended his way drearily by the 
side of the keeper up to the Schoolhouse, where they arrived 
just at locking-up. As they passed the school gates, the Tad- 
pole and several others who were standing there caught the 
state of things, and rushed out, crying “Rescue!” but Tom 
shook his head; so they only followed to the Doctor’s gate, and 
went back sorely puzzled. 

How changed and stern the Doctor seemed from the last 
time that Tom was up there, as the keeper told the story, not 
omitting to state how Tom had called him blackguard names. 
“Indeed, sir,” broke in the culprit, “it was only Velveteens.” 
The Doctor only asked one question. 

“You know the rule about the banks. Brown?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Then wait for me to-morrow, after first lesson.” 

1 A bob is a shilling. 


169 


MORE SCRAPES 

“I thought so,” muttered Tom. 

“And about the rod, sir?” went on the keeper; “master’s 
told we as we might have all the rods ” — 

“Oh, please, sir,” broke in Tom, “the rod isn’t mine.” The 
Doctor looked puzzled; but the keeper, who was a good-hearted 
fellow and melted at Tom’s evident distress, gave up his claim. 
Tom was flogged next morning, and a few days afterwards met 
Velveteens, and presented him with half a crown for giving up 
the rod claim, and they became sworn friends; and I regret to 
say that Tom had many more fish from under the willow that 
May-fly season, and was never caught again by Velveteens. 

It wasn’t three weeks before Tom, and now East by his side, 
were again in the awful presence. This time, however, the 
Doctor was not so terrible. A few days before they had been 
fagged at fives to fetch the balls that went off the court. While 
standing watching the game, they saw five or six nearly new 
balls hit on the top of the school. “I say, Tom,” said East, 
when they were dismissed, “couldn’t we get those balls some- 
how? ” 

“Let’s try, anyhow.” 

So they reconnoitered the walls carefully, borrowed a coal 
hammer from old Stumps, bought some big nails, and after one 
or two attempts scaled the schools, and possessed themselves 
of huge quantities of fives’-balls. The place pleased them so 
much that they spent all their spare time there, scratching and 
cutting their names on the top of every tower; and at last, having 
exhausted all other places, finished up with inscribing H. East, 
T. Brown, on the minute hand of the great clock; in the doing 
of which they held the minute hand, and disturbed the clock’s 
economy. So next morning, when masters and boys came 
trooping down to prayers and entered the quadrangle, the 
injured minute hand was indicating three minutes to the hour. 
They all pulled up, and took their time. When the hour struck, 
doors were closed and half the school late. Thomas, being set 
to make inquiry, discovers their names on the minute hand, 
and reports accordingly; and they are sent for, a knot of their 


MORE SCRAPES 


170 

friends making derisive and pantomimic allusions to what their 
fate will be, as they walk off. 

But the Doctor, after hearing their story, doesn’t make much 
of it, and only gives them thirty lines of Homer to learn by heart, 
and a lecture on the likelihood of such exploits ending in broken 
bones. 

Alas! almost the next day was one of the great fairs in the 
town; and as several rows and other disagreeable accidents had 
of late taken place on these occasions, the Doctor gives out, after 
prayers in the morning, that no boy is to go down into the town. 
Wherefore East and Tom, for no earthly pleasure except that 
of doing what they are told not to do, start away, after second 
lesson, and making a short circuit through the fields, strike 
a back lane which leads into the town, go down it, and run 
plump upon one of the masters as they emerge into the High 
Street. The master in question, though a very clever, is not a 
righteous man; he has already caught several of his own pupils, 
and gives them lines to learn, while he sends East and Tom, 
who are not his pupils, up to the Doctor, who, on learning that 
they had been at prayers in the morning, flogs them soundly. 

The flogging did them no good at the time, for the injustice 
of their captor was rankling in their minds; but it was just the 
end of the half, and on the next evening but one Thomas knocks 
at their door, and says the Doctor wants to see them. They 
look at one another in silent dismay. What can it be now? 
Which of their countiess wrongdoings can he have heard of 
officially? However, it’s no use delaying, so up they go to the 
study. There they find the Doctor, not angry, but very grave. 
“He has sent for them to speak very seriously before they go 
home. They have each been flogged several times in the half 
year for direct and willful breaches of rules. This cannot go on. 
They are doing no good to themselves or others, and now they 
are getting up in the school, and have influence. They seem to 
think that rules are made capriciously and for the pleasure of 
the masters; but this is not so: they are made for the good of the 
whole school, and must and shall be obeyed. Those who 


HORRIBLY SCARED 


171 

thoughtlessly or willfully break them will not be allowed to 
stay at the school. He should be sorry if they had to leave, as 
the school might do them both much good, and wishes them to 
think very seriously in the holidays over what he has said. 
Good night.” 

And so the two hurry off horribly scared; the idea of having 
to leave has never crossed their minds, and is quite unbearable. 

As they go out they meet at the door old Holmes, a sturdy, 
cheery praepostor of another house, who goes in to the Doctor; 
and they hear his genial, hearty greeting of the newcomer, so 
dilferent to their own reception, as the door closes, and return 
to their study with heavy hearts and tremendous resolves to 
break no more rules. 

Five minutes afterwards the master of their form, a late ar- 
rival and a model young master knocks at the Doctor’s study 
door. “Come in!” and as he enters the Doctor goes on to 
Holmes — “you see I do not know anything of the case officially, 
and if I take any notice of it at all, I must publicly expel the boy. 
I don’t wish to do that, for I think there is some good in him. 
There’s nothing for it but a good sound thrashing.” He paused 
to shake hands with the master, which Holmes does also, and 
then prepares to leave. 

“I understand. Good night, sir.” 

“Good night. Holmes. And remember,” added the Doctor, 
emphasizing the words, “a good sound thrashing before the 
whole house.” 

The door closed on Holmes; and the Doctor, in answer to 
the puzzled look of his lieutenant, explained shortly. “A gross 
case of bullying. Wharton, the head of the house, is a very good 
fellow, but slight and weak, and severe physical pain is the only 
way to deal with such a case; so I have asked Holmes to take it 
up. He is very careful and trustworthy, and has plenty of 
strength. I wish all the sixth had as much. We must have it 
here, if we are to keep order at all.” 

Now I don’t want any wiseacres to read this book; but if they 
should, of course they will prick up their long ears, and howl. 


THE DOCTOR REIGNING 


172 

or rather bray, at the above story. Very good, I don’t object; 
but what I have to add for you boys is this, that Holmes called a 
levy of his house after breakfast next morning, made them 
a speech on the case of bullying in question, and then gave the 
bully a “good sound thrashing”; and that years afterwards, 
that boy sought out Holmes, and thanked him, saying it had 
been the kindest act which had ever been done upon him, and 
the turning point in his character; and a very good fellow he 
became, and a credit to his school. 

After some other talk between them, the Doctor said, “I want 
to speak to you about two boys in your form. East and Brown; I 
have just been speaking to them. What do you think of them? ” 

“Well, they are not hard workers, and very thoughtless and 
full of spirits — but I can’t help liking them. I think they are 
sound, good fellows at the bottom.” 

“I’m glad of it. I think so too. But they make me very un- 
easy. They are taking the lead a good deal amongst the fags 
in my house, for they are very active, bold fellows. I should 
be sorry to lose them, but I shan’t let them stay if I don’t see 
them gaining character and manliness. In another year they 
may do great harm to all the younger boys.” 

“Oh, I hope you won’t send them away,” pleaded their master. 

“Not if I can help it. But now I never feel sure, after any 
half-holiday, that I shan’t have to flog one of them next morning 
for some foolish, thoughtless scrape. I quite dread seeing either 
of them.” 

They were both silent for a minute. Presently the Doctor 
began again, — 

“They don’t feel that they have any duty or work to do in the 
school, and how is one to make them feel it? ” 

“I think if either of them had some little boy to take care of, 
it would steady them. Brown is the most reckless of the two, 
I should say; East wouldn’t get into so many scrapes without 
him.” 

“Well,” said the Doctor, with something like a sigh, “I’ll 
think of it,” And they went on to talk of other subjects. 


PART II 


CHAPTER I 

HOW THE TIDE TURNED 

^Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide, 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side: 


Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, 
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.” 

Lowell. 

The turning point in our hero’s school career had now come, 
and the manner of it was as follows. On the evening of the first 
day of the next half year, Tom, East, and another Schoolhouse 
boy, who had just been dropped at the Spread Eagle by the old 
Regulator, rushed into the matron’s room in high spirits, such 
as all real boys are in when they first get back, however fond 
they may be of home. 

‘‘Well, Mrs. Wixie,” shouted one, seizing on the methodical, 
active, little dark-eyed woman, who was busy stowing away 
the linen of the boys who had already arrived into their several 
pigeonholes, “here we are again, you see, as jolly as ever. Let us 
help you put the things away.” 

“And, Mary,” cried another, (she was called indifferently by 
either name) “who’s come back? Has the Doctor made old 
Jones leave? How many new boys are there?” 

“Am I and East to have Gray’s study? You know you prom- 
ised to get it for us if you could,” shouted Tom. 

“And am I to sleep in Number 4? ” roared East. 

“How’s old Sam, and Bogle, and Sally?” 

“Bless the boys!” cries Mary, at last getting in a word, 
“why, you’ll shake me to death. There, now do go away up to 

173 


174 BLACK MONDAY 

the housekeeper’s room and get your suppers; you know I 
haven’t time to talk — you’ll find plenty more in the house. 
Now, Master East, do let those things alone — you’re mixing 
up tiuree new boys’ things.” And she rushed at East, who es- 
caped roimd the open trunks holding up a prize. 

“Hullo, look here. Tommy,” shouted he, “here’s fun!” and 
he brandished above his head some pretty little nightcaps, 
beautifully made and marked, the work of loving fingers in some 
distant country home. The kind mother and sisters, who sewed 
that delicate stitching with aching hearts, little thought of the 
trouble they might be bringing on the young head for which 
they were meant. The little matron was wiser, and snatched 
the caps from East before he could look at the name on them. 

“Now, Master East, I shall be very angry if you don’t go,” 
said she; “there’s some capital cold beef and pickles upstairs, 
and I won’t have you old boys in my room first night.” 

“Hurra for the pickles! Come along. Tommy; come along. 
Smith. We shall find out who the young count is. I’ll be bound; 
I hope he’ll sleep in my room. Mary’s always vicious first week.” 

As the boys toned to leave the room, the matron touched 
Tom’s arm, and said, “Master Brown, please stop a minute, 
I want to speak to you.” 

“Very well, Mary. I’ll come in a minute, East; don’t finish 
the pickles” — 

“Oh, Master Brown,” went on the little matron, when the 
rest had gone, “you’re to have Gray’s study, Mrs. Arnold says. 
And she wants you to take in this young gentleman. He’s a 
new boy, and thirteen years old, though he don’t look it. He’s 
very delicate and has never been from home before. And I 
told Mrs. Arnold I thought you’d be kind to him, and see that 
they don’t bully him at first. He’s put into your form, and I’ve 
given him the bed next to yours in Number 4; so East can’t sleep 
there this half.” 

Tom was rather put about by this speech. He had got the 
double study which he coveted, but here were conditions at- 
tached which greatly moderated his joy. He looked across the 


THE SADDLE IS PUT ON TOM 175 

room, and in the far corner of the sofa was aware of a slight, 
pale boy, with large blue eyes and light fair hair, who seemed 
ready to shrink through the floor. He saw at a glance that the 
little stranger was just the boy whose first half year at a public 
school would be misery to himself if he were left alone, or con- 
stant anxiety to any one who meant to see him through his 
troubles. Tom was too honest to take in the youngster and then 
let him shift for himself; and if he took him as his chum instead 
of East, where were all his pet plans of having a bottled-beer 
cellar imder his window, and making night lines and slings, 
and plotting expeditions to Brownsover Mills and Caldecott’s 
Spinney? East and he had made up their minds to get this study, 
and then every night from locking-up till ten they would be 
together to talk about fishing, drink bottled beer, read Marry- 
at’s” novels, and sort birds’ eggs. And this new boy would 
most likely never go out of the close, and would be afraid of wet 
feet, and always getting laughed at, and called Molly, or Jenny, 
or some derogatory feminine nickname. 

The matron watched him for a moment, and saw what was 
passing in his mind, and so, like a wise negotiator, threw in an 
appeal to his warm heart. “Poor little fellow,” said she in 
almost a whisper, “his father’s dead, and he’s got no brothers. 
And his mamma, such a kind, sweet lady, almost broke her 
heart at leaving him this morning; and she said one of his 
sisters was like to die of dechne, and so” — 

“Well, well,” burst in Tom, with something like a sigh at the 
effort, “I suppose I must give up East. Come along, young un. 
What’s your name? We’ll go and have some supper, and then 
I’ll show you our study.” 

“His name’s George Arthur,” said the matron, walking up 
to him with Tom, who grasped his little delicate hand as the 
proper preliminary to making a chum of him, and felt as if he 
could have blown him away. “I’ve had his books and things 
put into the study, which his mamma has had new papered, and 
the sofa covered, and new green-baize curtains over the door” 
(the diplomatic matron threw this in, to show that the new boy 


TEA WITH THE DOCTOR 


176 

was contributing largely to the partnership comforts). ‘‘And 
Mrs. Arnold told me to say,” she added, “that she should like 
you both to come up to tea with her. You know the way. 
Master Brown, and the things are just gone up, I know.” 

Here was an announcement for Master Tom! He was to go 
up to tea the first night, just as if he were a sixth- or fifth-form 
boy, and of importance in the school world instead of the most 
reckless young scapegrace amongst the fags. He felt himself 
lifted on a higher social and moral platform at once. Neverthe- 
less, he couldn’t give up without a sigh the idea of the jolly 
supper in the housekeeper’s room with East and the rest, and a 
rush round to all the studies of his friends afterwards, to pour 
out the deeds and wonders of the holidays, to plot fifty plans for 
the coming half year, and to gather news of who had left, and 
what new boys had come, who had got who’s study, and where 
the new praepostors slept. However, Tom consoled himself with 
thinking that he couldn’t have done all this with the new boy at 
his heels, and so marched off along the passages to the Doctor’s 
private house with his yoimg charge in tow, in monstrous good 
humor with himself and all the world. 

It is needless, and would be impertinent, to tell how the two 
young boys were received in that drawing-room. The lady who 
presided there is still living, and has carried with her to her 
peaceful home in the North the respect and love of all those who 
ever felt and shared that gentle and high-bred hospitality. 
Ay, many is the brave heart now doing its work and bearing its 
load in country curacies, London chambers, under the Indian 
sun, and in Australian towns and clearings, which looks back 
with fond and grateful memory to that Schoolhouse drawing- 
room, and dates much of its highest and best training to the 
lessons learned there. 

Besides Mrs. Arnold and one or two of the elder children, 
there were one of the younger masters, young Brooke, who was 
now in the sixth and had succeeded to his brother’s position 
and influence, and another sixth-form boy there, talking to- 
gether before the fire. The master and young Brooke, now a 


TEA WITH THE DOCTOR 


177 

great strapping fellow six feet high, eighteen years old, and 
powerful as a coal-heaver, nodded kindly to Tom, to his intense 
glory, and then went on talking; the other did not notice them. 
The hostess, after a few kind words, which led the boys at 
once and insensibly to feel at their ease, and to begin talking to 
one another, left them with her own children while she finished 
a letter. The young ones got on fast and well, Tom holding 
forth about a prodigious pony he had been riding out hunting, 
and hearing stories of the winter glories of the lakes, when tea 
came in, and immediately after the Doctor himself. 

How frank, and kind, and manly was his greeting to the party 
by the fire! It did Tom’s heart good to see him and young 
Brooke shake hands, and look one another in the face; and he 
didn’t fail to remark that Brooke was nearly as tall, and quite 
as broad as the Doctor. And his cup was full when in another 
moment his master turned to him with another warm shake of 
the hand, and, seemingly oblivious of all the late scrapes which 
he had been getting into, said, “Ah, Brown, you here! I hope 
you left your father and all well at home?” 

“Yes, sir, quite well.” 

“And this is the little fellow who is to share your study. Well, 
he doesn’t look as we should like to see him. He wants some 
Rugby air, and cricket. And you must take him some good long 
walks, to Bilton Grange and Caldecott’s Spinney, and show 
him what a little pretty country we have about here.” 

Tom wondered if the Doctor knew that his visits to Bilton 
Grange were for the purpose of taking rooks’ nests (a proceeding 
strongly discountenanced by the owner thereof) and those to 
Caldecott’s Spinney were prompted chiefly by the conveniences 
for setting night lines. TOat didn’t the Doctor know? And 
what a noble use he always made of it! He almost resolved to 
abjure rook-pies and night lines forever. The tea went merrily 
off, the Doctor now talking of holiday doings, and then of the 
prospects of the half year, what chance there was for the Balliol 
scholarship, whether the eleven would be a good on^'. Every- 
body was at his ease, and everybody felt that he, young as he 


178 ARTHUR^S D^:BUT 

might be, was of some use in the little school world, and had a 
work to do there. 

Soon after tea the Doctor went off to his study, and the young 
boys a few minutes afterwards took their leave, and went out 
of the private door which led from the Doctor’s house into the 
middle passage. 

At the fire, at the farther end of the passage, was a crowd of 
boys in loud talk and laughter. There was a sudden pause when 
the door opened, and then a great shout of greeting, as Tom was 
recognized marching down the passage. 

“Hullo, Brown, where do you come from?” 

“Oh, I’ve been to tea with the Doctor,” says Tom, with great 
dignity. 

“My eye!” cried East. “Oh! so that’s why Mary called you 
back, and you didn’t come to supper. You lost something — 
that beef and pickles was no end good.” 

“I say, young fellow,” cried Hall, detecting Arthur, and 
catching him by the collar, “what’s your name? Where do you 
come from? How old are you? ” 

Tom saw Arthur shrink back, and look scared as all the group 
turned to him, but thought it best to let him answer, just stand- 
ing by his side to support in case of need. 

“Arthur, sir. I come from Devonshire.” 

“Don’t call me ‘sir,’ you young muff. How old are you?” 

“Thirteen.” 

“Can you sing?” 

The poor boy was trembling and hesitating. Tom struck in — 
“You be hanged. Tadpole. He’ll have to sing, whether he can 
or not, Saturday twelve weeks, and that’s long enough off yet.” 

“Do you know him at home. Brown?” 

“No; but he’s my chum in Gray’s old study, and it’s near 
prayer time, and I haven’t had a look at it yet. Come along, 
Arthur.” 

Away went the two, Tom longing to get his charge safe under 
cover, where he might advise him on his deportment. 

“What a queer chum for Tom Brown,” was the comment at 


ARTHUKS D^:BUT 179 

the fire; and it must be confessed so thought Tom himself, as 
he lighted his candle, and surveyed the new green-baize curtains, 
and the carpet and sofa, with much satisfaction. 

“I say, Arthur, what a brick your mother is to make us so 
cozy. But look here now, you must answer straight up when 
the fellows speak to you, and don’t be afraid. If you’re afraid, 
you’ll get bullied. And don’t you say you can sing; and don’t 
you ever talk about home, or your mother and sisters.” 

Poor little Arthur looked ready to cry. 

“But please,” said he, “mayn’t I talk about — about home 
to you? ” 

“Oh, yes, I like it. But don’t talk to boys you don’t know, 
or they’ll call you homesick, or mamma’s darling, or some such 
stuff. What a jolly desk! is that yours? And what stunning 
binding! why, your schoolbooks look like novels.” 

And Tom was soon deep in Arthur’s goods and chattels, all 
new, and good enough for a fifth-form boy, and hardly thought 
of his friends outside till the prayer bell rang. 

I have already described the Schoolhouse prayers; they were 
the same on the first night as on the other nights, save for the 
gaps caused by the absence of those boys who came late, and the. 
line of new boys who stood all together at the farther table — 
of all sorts and sizes, like young bears with all their troubles 
to come, as Tom’s father had said to him when he was in the 
same position. He thought of it as he looked at the line, and 
poor little slight Arthur standing with them, and as he was 
leading him upstairs to Number 4, directly after prayers, and 
showing him his bed. It was a huge, high, airy room, with two 
large windows looking on to the school close. There were twelve 
beds in the room. The one in the farthest corner by the fire- 
place, occupied by the sixth-form boy who was responsible for 
the discipline of the room, and the rest by boys in the lower 
fifth and other junior forms, all fags (for the fifth-form boys, 
as has been said, slept in rooms by themselves). Being fags, 
the eldest of them was not more than about sixteen years old, 
and were all bound to be up and in bed by ten; the sixth-form 


l8o ARTHUR^S BtBUT 

boys came to bed from ten to a quarter past (at which time the 
old verger came round to put the candles out), except when they 
sat up to read. 

Within a few minutes, therefore, of their entry, all the other 
boys who slept in Number 4 had come up. The little fellows 
went quietly to their own beds, and began undressing and talk- 
ing to each other in whispers; while the elder, amongst whom 
was Tom, sat chatting about on one another’s beds, with their 
jackets and waistcoats off. Poor little Arthur was overwhelmed 
with the novelty of his position. The idea of sleeping in the 
room with strange boys had clearly never crossed his mind 
before, and was as painful as it was strange to him. He could 
hardly bear to take his jacket off; however, presently, with an 
effort, off it came, and then he paused and looked at Tom, who 
was sitting at the bottom of his bed talking and laughing. 

‘'Please, Brown,” he whispered, “may I wash my face and 
hands?” 

“Of course, if you like,” said Tom, staring; “that’s your 
wash-hand stand, under the window, second from your bed. 
You’ll have to go down for more water in the morning if you use 
it all.” And on he went with his talk, while Arthur stole timidly 
from between the beds out to his wash-hand stand, and began 
his ablutions, thereby drawing for a moment on himself the at- 
tention of the room. 

On went the talk and laughter. Arthur finished his washing 
and undressing, and put on his nightgown. He then looked 
round more nervously than ever. Two or three of the little boys 
were already in bed, sitting up with their chins on their knees. 
The light burned clear, the noise went on. It was a trying 
moment for the poor little lonely boy; however, this time he 
didn’t ask Tom what he might or might not do, but dropped on 
his knees by his bedside, as he had done every day from his 
childhood, to open his heart to Him who heareth the cry and 
beareth the sorrows of the tender child and the strong man in 
agony. 

Tom was sitting at the bottom of his bed unlacing his boots. 


LESSON NUMBER i i8i 

so that his back was towards Arthur, and he didn’t see what 
had happened, and looked up in wonder at the sudden silence. 
Then two or three boys laughed and sneered, and a big brutal 
fellow, who was standing in the middle of the room, picked up a 
slipper, and shied it at the kneeling boy, calling him a sniveling 
young shaver. Then Tom saw the whole, and the next moment 
the boot he had just pulled off flew straight at the head of the 
bully, who had just time to throw up his arm and catch it on his 
elbow. 

Confound you. Brown, what’s that for? ” roared he, stamping 
with pain. 

‘'Never mind what I mean,” said Tom, stepping on to the 
floor, every drop of blood in his body tingling; “if any fellow 
wants the other boot, he knows how to get it.” 

What would have been the result is doubtful, for at this 
moment the sixth-form boy came in, and not another word 
could be said. Tom and the rest rushed into bed and finished 
their unrobing there, and the old verger, as punctual as the 
clock, had put out the candle in another minute, and toddled 
on to the next room, shutting their door with his usual “Good 
night, genl’m’n.” 

There were many boys in the room by whom that little scene 
was taken to heart before they slept. But sleep seemed to have 
deserted the pillow of poor Tom. For some time his excitement, 
and the flood of memories which chased one another through his 
brain, kept him from thinking or resolving. His head throbbed, 
his heart leaped, and he could hardly keep himself from spring- 
ing out of bed and rushing about the room. Then the thought 
of his own mother came across him, and the promise he had 
made at her knee, years ago, never to forget to kneel by his bed- 
side, and give himself up to his Father, before he laid his head 
on the pillow, from which it might never rise; and he lay down 
gently and cried as if his heart would break. He was only 
fourteen years old. 

It was no light act of courage in those days, my dear boys, 
for a little fellow to say his prayers publicly, even at Rugby. 


i 82 


LESSON NUMBER l 


A few years later, when Arnold’s manly piety had begun to 
leaven the school, the tables turned; before he died, in the School- 
house at least, and I believe in the other houses, the rule was the 
other, way. But poor Tom had come to school in other times. 
The first few nights after he came he did not kneel down be- 
cause of the noise, but sat up in bed till the candle was out, 
and then stole out and said his prayers, in fear lest some one 
should find him out. So did many another poor little fellow. 
Then he began to think that he might just as well say his prayers 
in bed, and then that it didn’t matter whether he was kneeling, 
or sitting, or lying down. And so it had come to pass with Tom, 
as with all who will not confess their Lord before men; and for 
the last year he had probably not said his prayers in earnest a 
dozen times. 

Poor Tom! the first and bitterest feeling, which was like to 
break his heart, was the sense of his own cowardice. The vice 
of all others which he loathed was brought in and burned in on 
his own soul. He had hed to his mother, to his conscience, to his 
God. How could he bear it? And then the poor little weak boy, 
whom he had pitied and almost scorned for his weakness, had 
done that which he, braggart as he was, dared not do. The 
first dawn of comfort came to him in swearing to himself that 
he would stand by that boy through thick and thin, and cheer 
him, and help him, and bear his burdens, for the good deed done 
that night. Then he resolved to write home next day and tell 
his mother all, and what a coward her son had been. And then 
peace came to him as he resolved, lastly, to bear his testimony 
next morning. The morning would be harder than the night 
to begin with, but he felt that he could not afford to let one 
chance slip. Several times he faltered, for the devil showed him, 
first, all his old friends calling him “Saint” and “Square-toes,” 
and a dozen hard names, and whispered to him that his motives 
would be misunderstood, and he would only be left alone with 
the new boy; whereas it was his duty to keep all means of in- 
fluence, that he might do good to the largest number. And then 
came the more subtle temptation, “Shall I not be showing my- 


TOM LEARNS HIS LESSON 183 

self braver than others by doing this? Have I any right to begin 
it now? Ought I not rather to pray in my own study, letting 
other boys know that I do so, and trying to lead them , to it, 
while in public at least I should go on as I have done?” How- 
ever, his good angel was too strong that night, and he turned 
on his side and slept, tired of trying to reason, but resolved to 
follow the impulse which had been so strong, and in which he 
had found peace. 

Next morning he was up and washed and dressed, all but his 
jacket and waistcoat, just as the ten minutes’ bell began to 
ring, and then in the face of the whole room knelt down to pray. 
Not five words could he say — the bell mocked him; he was 
listening for every whisper in the room — what were they all 
thinking of him? He was ashamed to go on kneeling, ashamed 
to rise from his knees. At last, as it were from his inmost heart, 
a still small voice seemed to breathe forth the words of the publi- 
can, God be merciful to me a sinner! ” He repeated them over 
and over, clinging to them as for his life, and rose from his knees 
comforted and humbled, and ready to face the whole world. 
It was not needed: two other boys besides Arthur had already 
followed his example, and he went down to the great school with 
a ghmmering of another lesson in his heart — the lesson that 
he who has conquered his own coward spirit has conquered the 
whole outward world; and that other one which the old prophet 
learned in the cave in Mount Horeb, when he hid his face, and 
the still small voice asked, “What doest thou here, Elijah?”” 
that however we may fancy ourselves alone on the side of good, 
the King and Lord of men is nowhere without his witnesses; for 
in every society, however seemingly corrupt and godless, there 
are those who have not bowed the knee to Baal. 

He found, too, how greatly he had exaggerated the effect to 
be produced by his act. For a few nights there was a sneer 
or a laugh when he knelt down, but this passed off soon, and one 
by one all the other boys but three or four followed the lead. I 
fear that this was in some measure owing to the fact that Tom 
could probably have thrashed any boy in the room except the 


THE NEW BOY 


184 

praepostor; at any rate, every boy knew that he would try upon 
very slight provocation, and didn’t choose to run the risk of a 
hard fight because Tom Brown had taken a fancy to say his 
prayers. Some of the small boys of Number 4 communicated 
the new state of things to their chums, and in several other 
rooms the poor little fellows tried it on; in one instance or so, 
where the praepostor heard of it and interfered very decidedly, 
with partial success; but in the rest, after a short struggle, the 
confessors were bullied or laughed down, and the old state of 
things went on for some time longer. Before either Tom Brown 
or Arthur left the Schoolhouse there was no room in which it 
had not become the regular custom. I trust it is so still, and 
that the old heathen state of things has gone out forever. 

CHAPTER II 

THE NEW BOY 

“And Heaven’s rich instincts in him grew, 

As effortless as woodland nooks 
Send violets up and paint them blue.” 

Lowell. 

I DO not mean to recount all the little troubles and annoyances 
which thronged upon Tom at the beginning of this half year, 
in his new character of bear-leader to a gentle little boy straight 
from home. He seemed to himself to have become a new boy 
again, without any of the long-suffering and meekness indis- 
pensable for supporting that character with moderate success. 
From morning till night he had the feeling of responsibility on his 
mind; and even if he left Arthur in their study or in the close for 
an hour, was never at ease till he had him in sight again. He 
waited for him at the doors of the school after every lesson and 
every calling-over; watched that no tricks were played him, 
and none but the regulation questions asked; kept his eye on 
his plate at dinner and breakfast, to see that no unfair depreda- 
tions were made upon his viands; in short, as East remarked, 
cackled after him like a hen with one chick. 


TOM'S TRIALS 


185 

Arthur took a long time thawing, too, which made it all the 
harder work; was sadly timid; scarcely ever spoke unless Tom 
spoke to him first; and, worst of all, would agree with him in 
everything, the hardest thing in the world for a Brown to bear. 
He got quite angry sometimes, as they sat together of a night in 
their study, at this provoking habit of agreement, and was on 
the point of breaking out a dozen times with a lecture upon the 
propriety of a fellow having a will of his own and speaking out, 
but managed to restrain himself by the thought that it might 
only frighten Arthur, and the remembrance of the lesson he 
had learned from him on his first night at Number 4. Then he 
would resolve to sit still, and not say a word till Arthur began; 
but he was always beaten at that game, and had presently to begin 
talking in despair, fearing lest Arthur might think he was vexed 
at something if he didn’t, and dog-tired of sitting tongue-tied. 

' It was hard work! But Tom had taken it up, and meant to 
stick to it and go through with it, so as to satisfy himself; in 
which resolution he was much assisted by the chaffing of East 
and his other old friends, who began to call him “ dry nurse,” 
and otherwise to break their small wit on him. But when they 
took other ground, as they did every now and then, Tom was 
sorely puzzled. 

“Tell you what. Tommy,” East would say, “you’ll spoil young 
Hopeful with too much coddling. Why can’t you let him go 
about by himself and find his own level? He’ll never be worth 
a button, if you go on keeping him under your skirts.” 

“Well, but he ain’t fit to fight his own way yet; I’m trying to 
get him to it every day— but he’s very odd. Poor little beggar! 
I can’t make him out a bit. He ain’t a bit like anything I’ve 
ever seen or heard of — he seems all -over nerves; anything you 
say seems to hurt him like a cut or a blow.” 

“That sort of boy’s no use here,” said East; “he’ll only spoil. 
Now, I’ll tell you what to do. Tommy. Go and get a nice large 
bandbox made, and put him in with plenty of cotton wool, and 
a pap bottle, labeled ‘With care— this side up,’ and send him 
back to mamma.” 


i86 


EASrS ADVICE 


“I think I shall make a hand of him, though,’’ said Tom, 
smiling, “say what you will. There’s something about him, 
every now and then, which shows me he’s got pluck somewhere 
in him. That’s the only thing after all that’ll wash, ain’t it, 
old Scud? But how to get at it and bring it out? ” 

Tom took one hand out of his breeches pocket and stuck it in 
his back hair for a scratch, giving his hat a tilt over his nose, 
his one method of invoking wisdom. He stared at the ground 
with a ludicrously puzzled look, and presently looked up and met 
East’s eyes. That young gentleman slapped him on the back, 
and then put his arm round his shoulder, as they strolled through 
the quadrangle together. “Tom,” said he, “blest if you ain’t 
the best old fellow ever was; I do like to see you go into a thing. 
Hang it, I wish I could take things as you do — but I never can 
get higher than a joke. If I was going to be flogged next 
minute, I should be in a blue funk,^ but I couldn’t help laughing 
at it for the life of me.” 

“Brown and East, you go and fag for Jones on the great 
fives’ court.” 

“Hullo, though, that’s past a joke,” broke out East, springing 
at the young gentleman who addressed them, and catching him 
by the collar. “Here, Tommy, catch hold of him t’other side 
before he can holla.” 

The youth was seized, and dragged struggling out of the 
quadrangle into the Schoolhouse hall. He was one of the miser- 
able, little, pretty, white-handed, curly-headed boys, petted and 
pampered by some of the big fellows, who wrote their verses for 
them, taught them to drink and use bad language, and did 
all they could to spoil them for everything ^ in this world and the 
next. One of the avocations in which these young gentlemen 
took particular delight was in going about and getting fags for 
their protectors, when those heroes were playing any game. 

1 Thoroughly frightened condition. 

2 A kind and wise critic, an old Rugboean, notes in the margin: The “small 
friend system was not so utterly bad from 1841-1847.” Before that, too, 
there were many noble friendships between big and little boys, but I can’t 
strike out the passage; many boys will know why it is left in. 


AN EPISODE 


187 

They carried about pencil and paper with them, putting down 
the names of all the boys they sent, always sending five times as 
many as were wanted, and getting all those thrashed who didn’t 
go. The present youth belonged to a house which was very 
jealous of the Schoolhouse, and always picked out Schoolhouse 
fags when he could find them. However, this time he’d got the 
wrong sow by the ear. His captors slammed the great door of 
the hall, and East put his back against it, while Tom gave the 
prisoner a shakeup, took away his list, and stood him up on 
the floor, while he proceeded leisurely to examine that docu- 
ment. 

“Let me out, let me go!” screamed the boy in a furious pas- 
sion. “I’ll go and tell Jones this minute, and he’ll give you 
both the thrashing you ever had.” 

“Pretty little dear,” said East, patting the top of his hat; 
“hark how he swears, Tom. Nicely brought up young man, 
ain’t he, I don’t think.” 

“Let me alone, you,” roared the boy, foaming with rage, 

and kicking at East, who quietly tripped him up, and deposited 
him on the floor in a place of safety. 

“Gently, young fellow,” said he; “’tain’t improving for little 
whippersnappers like you to be indulging in blasphemy; so you 
stop that, or you’ll get something you won’t like.” 

“I’ll have you both licked when I get out, that I will,” re- 
joined the boy, beginning to snivel. 

“Two can play at that game, mind you,” said Tom, who had 
finished his examination of the list. “Now you just listen here. 
We’ve just come across the fives’ court, and Jones has four 
fags there already, two more than he wants. If he’d wanted us 
to change, he’d have stopped us himself. And here, you httle 
blackguard, you’ve got seven names down on your list besides 
ours, and five of them Schoolhouse.” Tom walked up to him 
and jerked him on to his legs; he was by this time whining like a 
whipped puppy. 

“Now just listen to me. We ain’t going to fag for Jones. If 
you tell him you’ve sent us, we’ll each of us give you such a 


AN EPISODE 


i88 

thrashing as you’ll remember.” And Tom tore up the list and 
threw the pieces into the fire. 

“And mind you, too,” said East, “don’t let me catch you 
again sneaking about the Schoolhouse, and picking up our fags. 
You haven’t got the sort of hide to take a sound licking kindly 
and he opened the door and sent the young gentleman flying 
into the quadrangle, with a parting kick. 

“Nice boy. Tommy,” said East, shoving his hands in his 
pockets and strolling to the fire. 

“Worst sort we breed,” responded Tom, following his ex- 
ample. “Thank goodness, no big fellow ever took to petting 
me. 

“You’d never have been like that,” said East. “I should 
like to have put him in a museum, — Christian young gentle- 
man, nineteenth century, highly educated. Stir him up with 
a long pole. Jack, and hear him swear like a drunken sailor! 
He’d make a respectable public open its eyes, I think.” 

“Think he’ll tell Jones?” said Tom. 

“No,” said East. “Don’t care if he does.” 

“Nor I,” said Tom. And they went back to talk about 
Arthur. 

The young gentleman had brains enough not to tell Jones, 
reasoning that East and Brown, who were noted as some of 
the toughest fags in the school, wouldn’t care three straws 
for any licking Jones might give them, and would be likely to 
keep their words as to passing it on with interest. 

After the above conversation East came a good deal to their 
study, and took notice of Arthur; and soon allowed to Tom 
that he was a thorough little gentleman, and would get over his 
shyness all in good time, which much comforted our hero. He 
felt every day, too, the value of having an object in his life, 
something that drew him out of himself; and, it being the dull 
time of the year, and no games going about which he much cared, 
was happier than he had ever yet been at school, which was 
saying a great deal. 

The time which Tom allowed himself away from his charge 


LESSON NUMBER 2 


189 

was from locking-up till supper time. During this hour or hour 
and a half he used to take his fling, going round to the studies 
of all his acquaintance, sparring or gossiping in the hall, now 
jumping the old iron-bound tables, or carving a bit of his name 
on them, then joining in some chorus of merry voices; in fact, 
blowing off his steam, as we should now call it. 

This process was so congenial to his temper, and Arthur 
showed himself so pleased at the arrangement, that it was several 
weeks before Tom was ever in their study before supper. One 
evening, however, he rushed in to look for an old chisel, or some 
corks, or other article essential to his pursuit for the time being, 
and while rummaging about in the cupboards, looked up for a 
moment, and was caught at once by the figure of poor little 
Arthur. The boy was sitting with his elbows on the table, and 
his head leaning on his hands, and before him an open book, 
on which his tears were falling fast. Tom shut the door at once, 
and sat down on the sofa by Arthur, putting his arm round his 
neck. 

“Why, young un! what’s the matter?” said he kindly; “you 
ain’t unhappy, are you?” 

“Oh, no. Brown,” said the little boy, looking up with the 
great tears in his eyes, “you are so kind to me, I’m very happy.” 

“Why don’t you call me Tom? lots of boys do that I don’t 
like half so much as you. What are you reading, then? Hang 
it, you must come about with me, and not mope yourself,” and 
Tom cast down his eyes on the book, and saw it was the Bible. 
He was silent for a minute, and thought to himself, “Lesson 
Number 2, Tom Brown — and then said gently, — 

“I’m very glad to see this, Arthur, and ashamed that I don’t 
read the Bible more myself. Do you read it every night before 
supper while I’m out?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, I wish you’d wait till afterwards, and then we’d read 
together. But, Arthur, why does it make you cry?” 

“Oh, it isn’t that I’m unhappy. But at home, while my 
father was alive, we always read the lessons after tea; and I 


LESSON NUMBER 2 


190 

love to read them over now, and try to remember what he said 
about them. I can’t remember all, and I think I scarcely under- 
stand a great deal of what I do remember. But it all comes 
back to me so fresh, that I can’t help crying sometimes to think 
I shall never read them again with him.” 

Arthur had never spoken of his home before, and Tom hadn’t 
encouraged him to do so, as his blundering schoolboy reasoning 
made him think that Arthur would be softened and less manly 
for thinking of home. But now he was fairly interested, and 
forgot all about chisels and bottled beer; while with very little 
encouragement Arthur launched into his home history, and 
the prayer bell put them both out sadly when it rang to call 
them to the hall. 

From this time Arthur constantly spoke of his home, and, 
above all, of his father, who had been dead about a year, and 
whose memory Tom soon got to love and reverence almost as 
much as his own son did. 

Arthur’s father had been the clergyman of a parish in the Mid- 
land Counties, which had risen into a large town during the war, 
and upon which the hard years which followed had fallen with a 
fearful weight. The trade had been half ruined; and then came 
the old sad story, of masters reducing their establishments, 
men turned off and wandering about, hungry and wan in body, 
and fierce in soul, from the thought of wives and children starv- 
ing at home, and the last sticks of furniture going to the pawn- 
shop; children taken from school, and lounging about the dirty 
streets and courts, too hstless almost to play, and squalid in 
rags and misery; and then the fearful struggle between the em- 
ployers and men, lowerings of wages, strikes, and the long course 
of oft repeated crime, ending every now and then with a riot, 
a fire, and the county yeomanry. There is no need here to dwell 
upon such tales; the Englishman into whose soul they have not 
sunk deep is not worthy the name; you English boys for whom 
this book is meant (God bless your bright faces and kind hearts!) 
will learn it all soon enough. 

Into such a parish and state of society Arthur’s father had been 


ARTHURS HOME 191 

thrown at the age of twenty-five, a young married parson, full 
of faith, hope, and love. He had battled with it like a man and 
had lots of fine Utopian ” ideas about the perfectibility of man- 
kind, glorious humanity, and such-like knocked out of his head; 
and a real wholesome Christian love for the poor struggling, 
sinning men, of whom he felt himself one, and with and for 
whom he spent fortune, and strength, and life, driven into his 
heart. He had battled like a man, and gotten a man’s reward. 
No silver teapots or salvers, with flowery inscriptions, setting 
forth his virtues and the appreciation of a genteel parish; no 
fat living ^ or stall, for which he never looked, and didn’t care; 
no sighs and praises of comfortable dowagers and well got-up 
young women who worked him slippers, sugared his tea, and 
adored him as “ a devoted man ”; but a manly respect, wrung 
from the unwilling souls of men who fancied his order their 
natural enemies; the fear and hatred of every one who was false 
or unjust in the district, were he master or man; and the blessed 
sight of women and children daily becoming more human and 
more homely, a comfort to themselves and to their husbands 
and fathers. 

These things of course took time, and had to be fought for 
with toil and sweat of brain and heart, and with the lifeblood 
poured out. All that, Arthur had laid his account to give, and 
took as a matter of course; neither pitying himself nor looking 
on himself as a martyr, when he felt the wear and tear making 
him feel old before his time,’ and the stifling air of fever dens 
telling on his health. His wife seconded him in everything. 
She had been rather fond of society, and much admired and run 
after before her marriage; and the London world to which she 
had belonged pitied poor Fanny Evelyn when she married the 
young clergyman, and went to settle in that smoky hole Turley, 
a very nest of Chartism ^ and atheism,^ in a part of the county 
which all the decent families had had to leave for years. How- 
ever, somehow or other she didn’t seem to care. If her husband’s 

^ A position as clergyman with a large salary. 

2 Radical political doctrines. ® Disbelief in God. 


ARTHURS HOME 


192 

living had been amongst green fields and near pleasant neigh- 
bors, she would have liked it better, that she never pretended to 
deny. But there they were: the air wasn’t bad after all; the 
people were very good sort of people, civil to you if you were 
civil to them, after the first brush; and they didn’t expect to 
work miracles, and convert them all off-hand into model Chris- 
tians. So he and she went quietly among the folk, talking to and 
treating them just as they would have done people of their own 
rank. They didn’t feel that they were doing anything out of the 
common way, and so were perfectly natural, and had none of 
that condescension or consciousness of manner, which so out- 
rages the independent poor. And thus they gradually won 
respect and confidence; and after sixteen years he was looked up 
to by the whole neighborhood as the just man, the man to whom 
masters and men could go in their strikes, and in all their quarrels 
and difficulties, and by whom the right and true word would be 
said without fear or favor. And the women had come round to 
take her advice, and go to her as a friend in all their troubles; 
while the children all worshiped the very ground she trod on. 

They had three children, two daughters and a son, little 
Arthur, who came between his sisters. He had been a very 
delicate boy from his childhood; they thought he had a tendency 
to consumption, and so he had been kept at home and taught 
by his father, who had made a companion of him, and from whom 
he had gained good scholarship, and a knowledge of and interest 
in many subjects which boys in general never come across till 
they are many years older. 

Just as he reached his thirteenth year, and his father had 
settled that he was strong enough to go to school, and, after 
much debating with himself, had resolved to send him there, 
a desperate typhus fever broke out in the town; most of the other 
clergy, and almost all the doctors, ran away; the work fell with 
tenfold weight on those who stood to their work. Arthur 
and his wife both caught the fever, of which he died in a few 
days, and she recovered, having been able to nurse him to the 
end, and store up his last words. He was sensible to the last, 


ARTHUR'S HOME 193 

and calm and happy, leaving his wife and children with fearless 
trust for a few years in the hands of the Lord and Friend who had 
lived and died for him, and for whom he, to the best of his power, 
had lived and died. His widow’s mourning was deep and gentle; 
she was more affected by the request of the Committee of a 
Freethinking Club, established in the town by some of the 
factory hands, (which he had striven against with might and 
main, and nearly suppressed) that some of their number might 
be allowed to help bear the coffin, than by anything else. Two 
of them were chosen, who with six other laboring men, his own 
fellow-workmen and friends, bore him to his grave — a man who 
had fought the Lord’s fight even unto the death. The shops were 
closed and the factories shut that day in the parish, yet no master 
stopped the day’s wages; but for many a year afterwards the 
townsfolk felt the want of that brave, hopeful, loving parson, 
and his wife, who had lived to teach them mutual forbearance 
and helpfulness, and had almost at last given them a glimpse 
of what this old world would be, if people would live for God 
and each other, instead of for themselves. 

'What has all this to do with our story? Well, my dear boys, 
let a fellow go on his own way, or you won’t get anything out 
of him worth having. I must show you what sort of a man it 
was who had begotten and trained little Arthur, or else you 
won’t believe in him, which I am resolved you shall do; and you 
won’t see how he, the timid weak boy, had points in him from 
which the bravest and strongest recoiled, and made his presence 
and example felt from the first on all sides, unconsciously to 
himself, and without the least attempt at proselytizing. The 
spirit of his father was in him, and the Friend to whom his 
father had left him did not neglect the trust. 

After supper that night, and almost nightly for years after- 
wards, Tom and Arthur, and by degrees East occasionally, and 
sometimes one, sometimes another, of their friends, read a 
chapter of the Bible together, and talked it over afterwards. 
Tom was at first utterly astonished, and almost shocked, at the 
sort of way in which Arthur read the book, and talked about 


RESULTS OF LESSON NUMBER 2 


194 

the men and women whose lives were there told. The first 
night they happened to fall on the chapters about the famine 
in Egypt, and Arthur began talking about Joseph as if he were 
a living statesman; just as he might have talked about Lord 
Grey and the Reform Bill;” only that they were much more 
living realities to him. The book was to him, Tom saw, the most 
vivid and delightful history of real people, who might do right 
or wrong, just like any one who was walking about in Rugby — 
the Doctor, or the masters, or the sixth-form boys. But the 
astonishment soon passed off, the scales seemed to drop from 
his eyes, and the book became at once and forever to him the 
great human and divine book, and the men and women, whom he 
had looked upon as something quite different from himself, 
became his friends and counselors. 

For our purposes, however, the history of one night’s reading 
will be sufficient, which must be told here, now we are on the sub- 
ject, though it didn’t happen till a year afterwards, and long 
after the events recorded in the next chapter of our story. 

Arthur, Tom, and East were together one night and read the 
story of Naaman coming to Elisha to be cured of his leprosy. 
When the chapter was finished, Tom shut his Bible with a slap. 

“I can’t stand that fellow Naaman,” said he, “after what he’d 
seen and felt, going back and bowing himself down in the house 
of Rimmon, because his effeminate scoundrel of a master did it. 
I wonder Elisha took the trouble to heal him. How he must 
have despised him.” 

“Yes, there you go off as usual, with a shell on your head,” 
struck in East, who always took the opposite side to Tom, half 
from love of argument, half from conviction. “How do you 
know he didn’t think better of it? how do you know his master 
was a scoundrel? His letter don’t look like it, and the book 
don’t say so.” 

“I don’t care,” rejoined Tom; “why did Naaman talk about 
bowing down, then, if he didn’t mean to do it? He wasn’t 
likely to get more in earnest when he got back to Court, and 
away from the Prophet.” 


TOM IS STIFF-NECKED I95 

“Well, but, Tom,” said Arthur, “look what Elisha says to 
him: ‘ Go in peace.’ He wouldn’t have said that if Naaman had 
been in the wrong.” 

“I don’t see that that means more than saying, ‘You’re not 
the man I took you for. ’ ” 

“No, no, that won’t do at all,” said East; “read the words 
fairly, and take men as you find them. I like Naaman, and 
think he was a very fine fellow.” 

“I don’t,” said Tom positively. 

“Well, I think East is right,” said Arthur; “I can’t see but 
what it’s right to do the best you can, though it mayn’t be the 
best absolutely. Every man isn’t born to be a martyr.” 

“Of course, of course,” said East; “but he’s on one of his pet 
hobbies. How often have I told you, Tom, that you must drive 
a nail where it’ll go.” 

“And how often have I told you,” rejoined Tom, “that it’ll 
always go where you want, if you only stick to it and hit hard 
enough. I hate half-measures and compromises.” 

“Yes, he’s a whole-hog man, is Tom. Must have the whole 
animal, hair and teeth, claws and tail,” laughed East. “Sooner 
have no bread any day than hah the loaf.” 

“I don’t know,” said Arthur, “it’s rather puzzling; but ain’t 
most right things got by proper compromises, I mean where the 
principle isn’t given up?” 

“That’s just the point,” said Tom; “I don’t object to a 
compromise, where you don’t give up your principle.” 

“Not you,” said East laughingly. “I know him of old, 
Arthur, and you’ll find him out some day. There isn’t such a 
reasonable fellow in the world, to hear him talk. He never 
wants anything but what’s right and fair; only when you come 
to settle what’s right and fair, it’s everything that he wants, and 
nothing that you want. And that’s his idea of a compromise. 
Give me the Brown compromises when I’m on his side.” 

“Now, Harry,” said Tom, “no more chaff — I’m serious. 
Look here — this is what makes my blood tingle”; and he turned 
over the pages of his Bible and read, “Shadrach, Meshach, and 


TOM PLEDGES HIMSELF 


196 

Abednego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, 
we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it he so, 
our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning 
fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. 
But if notj be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve 
thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. ’ ” 
He read the last verse twice, emphasizing the “nots,” and dwell- 
ing on them as if they gave him actual pleasure, and were hard 
to part with. 

They were silent a minute, and then Arthur said, ‘‘Yes, that’s 
a glorious story, but it don’t prove your point, Tom, I think. 
There are times when there is only one way, and that the highest, 
and then the men are found to stand in the breach.” 

“There’s always a highest way, and it’s always the right one,” 
said Tom. “How many times has the Doctor told us that in 
his sermons in the last year, I should like to know?” 

“Well, you ain’t going to convince us, is he, Arthur? No 
Brown compromise to-night,” said East, looking at his watch. 
“But it’s past eight, and we must go to first lesson. What a 
bore!” 

So they took down their books and fell to work; but Arthur 
didn’t forget, and thought long and often over the conversation. 

CHAPTER III 

ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND 

“ Let Nature be your teacher. 

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; 

Our meddling intellect 

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things, — 

We murder to dissect. 

Enough of Science and of Art; 

Close up those barren leaves; 

Come forth, and bring with you a heart 
That watches and receives.” 

Wordsworth. 

About six weeks after the beginning of the half, as Tom and 
Arthur were sitting one night before supper beginning their 


TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER 197 

verses, Arthur suddenly stopped, and looked up, and said, “Tom, 
do you know anything of Martin? ” 

“Yes,” said Tom, taking his hand out of his back hair, and 
delighted to throw his Gradus ad Parnassum ^ on to the sofa, 
“I know him pretty well. He’s a very good fellow, but as mad 
as a hatter. He’s called Madman, you know. And never was 
such a fellow for getting all sorts of rum things about him. 
He tamed two snakes last half, and used to carry them about 
in his pocket, and I’ll be bound he’s got some hedgehogs 
and rats in his cupboard now, and no one knows what be- 
sides.” 

“I should like very much to know him,” said Arthur; “he was 
next to me in the form to-day, and he’d lost his book and looked 
over mine, and he seemed so kind and gentle, that I liked him 
very much.” 

“Ah, poor old Madman, he’s always losing his books,” said 
Tom, “and getting called up and floored because he hasn’t 
gof them.” 

“I like him all the better,” said Arthur. 

“ Well, he’s great fun, I can tell you,” said Tom, throwing 
himself back on the sofa, and chuckling at the remembrance. 
“We had such a game with him one day last half. He had 
been kicking up horrid stinks for some time in his study, till I 
suppose some fellow told Mary, and she told the Doctor. Any- 
how one day a little before dinner, when he came down from the 
library, the Doctor, instead of going home, came striding into 
the hall. East and I and five or six other fellows were at the 
fire, and preciously we stared, for he don’t come in like that once 
a year, unless it is a wet day and there’s a fight in the hall. 
‘East,’ says he, ‘just come and show me Martin’s study.’ ‘Oh, 
here’s a game,’ whispered the rest of us, and we all cut upstairs 
after the Doctor, East leading. As we got into the New Row, 
which was hardly wide enough to hold the Doctor and his gown, 
click, click, click, we heard in the old Madman’s den. Then 
that stopped all of a sudden, and the bolts went to like fun; 

^ A textbook for the study of Latin. 


igS TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER 

the Madman knew East’s step, and thought there was going to 
be a siege. 

“‘It’s the Doctor, Martin. He’s here and wants to see you,’ 
sings out East. 

“Then the bolts went back slowly, and the door opened, and 
there was the old Madman standing, looking precious scared; 
his jacket off, his shirt sleeves up to his elbows, and his long 
skinny arms all covered with anchors and arrows and letters, 
tattooed in with gunpowder like a sailor boy’s, and a stink fit 
to knock you down coming out. ’Twas all the Doctor could do 
to stand his ground, and East and I, who were looking in under 
his arms, held our noses tight. The old magpie was standing 
on the window sill, all his feathers drooping, and looking dis- 
gusted and half poisoned. 

“‘What can you be about, Martin?’ says the Doctor; ‘you 
really mustn’t go on in this way — ^you’re a nuisance to the 
whole passage.’ 

“‘Please, sir, I was only mixing up this powder, there isn’t 
any harm in it ’; and the Madman seized nervously on his pestle- 
and-mortar, to show the Doctor the harmlessness of his pursuits, 
and went off pounding; click, click, click; he hadn’t given six 
clicks before, puff! up went the whole into a great blaze, away 
went the pestle-and-mortar across the study, and back we 
tumbled into the passage. The magpie fluttered down into the 
court swearing, and the Madman danced out, howling, with his 
fingers in his mouth. The Doctor caught hold of him, and called 
to us to fetch some water. ‘There, you silly fellow,’ said he, 
quite pleased, though, to find he wasn’t much hurt, ‘you see 
you don’t know the least what you’re doing with all these things; 
and now, mind, you must give up practicing chemistry by your- 
self.’ Then he took hold of his arm and looked at it, and I saw 
he had to bite his lip, and his eyes twinkled; but he said, quite 
grave, ‘Here, you see, you’ve been making all these foolish marks 
on yourself, which you can never get out, and you’ll be very 
sorry for it in a year or two; now come down to the housekeeper’s 
room, and let us see if you are hurt.’ And away went the two 


TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER 199 

and we all stayed and had a regular turn-out of the den, till 
Martin came back with his hand bandaged and turned us out. 
However, I’ll go and see what he’s after, and tell him to come in 
after prayers to supper.” And away went Tom to find the boy 
in question, who dwelt in a little study by himself, in Nqw Row. 

The aforesaid Martin, whom Arthur had taken such a fancy 
for, was one of those unfortunates who were at that time of 
day (and are, I fear, still) quite out of their places at a public 
school. If we knew how to use our boys, Martin would have 
been seized upon and educated as a natural philosopher. He 
had a passion for birds, beasts, and insects, and knew more 
of them and their habits than any one in Rugby, except perhaps 
the Doctor, who knew everything. He was also an experimental 
chemist on a small scale, and had made unto himself an electric 
machine, from which it was his greatest pleasure and glory to 
administer small shocks to any small boys who were rash enough 
to venture into his study. And this was by no means an ad- 
venture free from excitement; for, besides the probability of a 
snake dropping on to your head or twining lovingly up your leg, 
or a rat getting into your breeches pocket in search of food, 
there was the animal and chemical odor to be faced, which always 
hung about the den, and the chance of being blown up in some of 
the many experiments which Martin was always trying, with 
the most wondrous results in the shape of explosions and smells 
that mortal boy ever heard of. Of course, poor Martin, in con- 
sequence of his pursuits, had become an Ishmaelite ^ in the 
house. In the first place, he half poisoned all his neighbors, and 
they in turn were always on the lookout to pounce upon any 
of his numerous live stock, and drive him frantic by enticing 
his pet old magpie out of his window into a neighboring study, 
and making the disreputable old bird drunk on toast soaked 
in beer and sugar. Then Martin, for his sins, inhabited a study 
looking into a small court some ten feet across, the window of 
which was completely commanded by those of the studies op- 
posite in the sick-room row, these latter being at a slightly 
1 An outcast. See Genesis, XVI, 15 and XXI, 14. 


200 


TROUBLES OF A BOY -PHILOSOPHER 


higher elevation. East, and another boy of an equally torment- 
ing and ingenious turn of mind, now lived exactly opposite, 
and had expended huge pains and time in the preparation of in- 
struments of annoyance for the behoof of Martin and his live 
colony. One morning an old basket made its appearance, sus- 
pended by a short cord outside Martin’s window, in which were 
deposited an amateur nest containing four young jackdaws, 
the pride and glory of Martin’s life for the time being, and which 
he was currently asserted to have hatched upon his own person. 
Early in the morning and late at night he was to be seen half out 
of the window, administering to the varied wants of his callow 
brood. After deep cogitation. East and his chum had spliced 
a knife on to the end of a fishing rod; and having watched Martin 
out, had, after half an hour’s severe sawing, cut the string by 
which the basket was suspended, and tumbled it on to the paye- 
ment below, wifh hideous remonstrance from the occupants. 
Poor Martin, returning from his short absence, collected the 
fragments and replaced his brood (except one whose neck had 
been broken in the descent) in their old location, suspending 
them this time by string and wire twisted together, defiant of 
any sharp instrument which his persecutors could command. 
But, like the Russian engineers at Sebastopol,” East and his 
chum had an answer for every move of the adversary; and the 
next day had mounted a gun in the shape of a pea shooter upon 
the ledge of their window, trained so as to bear exactly upon the 
spot which Martin had to occupy while tending his nurslings. 
The moment he began to feed they began to shoot; in vain did 
the enemy himself invest in a pea shooter, and endeavor to an- 
swer the fire while he fed the young birds with his other hand; 
his attention was divided and his shots flew wild, while every 
one of theirs told on his face and hands and drove him into 
bowlings and imprecations. He had been driven to ensconce 
the nest in a corner of his already too well-filled den. 

His door was barricaded by a set of ingenious bolts of his own 
invention, for the sieges were frequent by the neighbors when 
any unusually ambrosial odor spread itself from the den to the 


201 


THE PHILOSOPHER'S DEN 

neighboring studies. The door panels were in a normal state of 
smash, but the frame of the door resisted all besiegers, and be- 
hind it the owner carried on his varied pursuits; much in the 
same state of mind, I should fancy, as a border farmer lived in, 
in the days of the old moss-troopers,^ when his hold might be 
summoned or his cattle carried off at any minute of night or 
day. 

‘‘Open, Martin, old boy — it’s only I, Tom Brown.” 

“Oh, very well, stop a moment.” One bolt went back. 
“You’re sure East isn’t there?” 

“No, no, hang it, open.” Tom gave a kick, the other bolt 
creaked, and he entered the den. 

Den indeed it was, about five feet six inches long by five 
wide, and seven feet high. About six tattered schoolbooks 
and a few chemical books, taxidermy, Stanley on birds, and an 
odd volume of Bewick,^ the latter in much better preservation, 
occupied the top shelves. The other shelves, where they had not 
been cut away and used by the owner for other purposes, were 
fitted up for the abiding places of birds, beasts, and reptiles. 
There was no attempt at carpet or curtain. The table was en- 
tirely occupied by the great work of Martin, the electric machine, 
which was covered carefully with the remains of his tablecloth. 
The jackdaw cage occupied one wall, and the other was adorned 
by a small hatchet, a pair of climbing irons, and his tin candle- 
box, in which he was for the time being endeavoring to raise a 
hopeful young family of field mice. As nothing should be let 
to lie useless, it was well that the candle-box was thus occupied, 
for candles Martin never had. A pound was issued to him weekly 
as to the other boys; but as candles were available capital, and 
easily exchangeable for birds’ eggs or young birds, Martin’s 
pound invariably found its way in a few hours to Howlett’s, 
the bird fancier’s, in the Bilton-road, who would give a hawk’s 
or nightingale’s egg or young linnet in exchange. Martin’s 
ingenuity was, therefore, forever on the rack to supply himself 

1 Marauders on the border between England and Scotland. 

2 The author of a History of British Birds. 


202 


THE INVITATION 


with a light; just now he had hit upon a grand invention, and 
the den was lighted by a flaring cotton wick issuing from a 
ginger-beer bottle full of some doleful composition. When light 
altogether failed him, Martin would loaf about by the fires in 
the passages or hall, after the manner of Diggs, and try to do 
his verses or learn his lines by the firelight. 

“Well, old boy, you haven’t got any sweeter in the den this 
half. How that stuff in the bottle stinks. Never mind, I ain’t 
going to stop, but you come up after prayers to our study; 
you know young Arthur, we’ve got Gray’s study. We’ll have a 
good supper and talk about bird’s-nesting.” 

Martin was evidently highly pleased at the invitation, and 
promised to be up without fail. 

As soon as prayers were over, and the sixth- and fifth-form 
boys had withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of their own 
room, and the rest, or democracy, had sat down to their supper in 
the hall, Tom and Arthur, having secured their allowances of 
bread and cheese, started on their feet to catch the eye of the 
praepostor of the week, who remained in charge during supper, 
walking up and down the hall. He happened to be an easy- 
going fellow, so they got a pleasant nod to their “Please may I go 
out? ” and away they scrambled to prepare for Martin a sump- 
tuous banquet. This Tom had insisted on, for he was in great 
delight on the occasion; the reason of which delight must be ex- 
pounded. The fact was that this was the first attempt at a 
friendship of his own which Arthur had made, and Tom hailed it 
as a grand step. The ease with which he himself became hail- 
fellow-well-met with anybody, and blundered into and out of 
twenty friendships a half year, made him sometimes sorry and 
sometimes angry at Arthur’s reserve and loneliness. True, 
Arthur was always pleasant, and even jolly, with any boys who 
came with Tom to their study; but Tom felt that it was only 
through him, as it were, that his chum associated with others, 
and that but for him Arthur would have been dwelling in a 
wilderness. This increased his consciousness of responsibility; 
and though he hadn’t reasoned it out and made it clear to himself, 


TOM^S WORK 


203 

yet somehow he knew that this responsibility, this trust which 
he had taken on him without thinking about it, head-over-heels 
in fact, was the center and turning point of his school life, that 
which was to make him or mar him; his appointed work and trial 
for the time being. And Tom was becoming a new boy, though 
with frequent tumbles in the dirt and perpetual hard battles with 
himself, and was daily growing in manfulness and thoughtful- 
ness, as every high-couraged and well principled boy must, 
when he finds himself for the first time consciously at grips with 
self and the devil. Already he could turn almost without a sigh 
from the school gates, from which had just scampered off East 
and three or four others of his own particular set, bound for 
some jolly lark not quite according to law, and involving prob- 
ably a row with louts, keepers, or farm laborers, the skipping 
dinner or calling-over, some of Phoebe Jennings’ beer, and a very 
possible flogging at the end of all as a relish. He had quite 
got over the stage in which he would grumble to himself, “Well, 
hang it, it’s very hard of the Doctor to have saddled me with 
Arthur. Why couldn’t he have chummed him with Fogey, or 
Thomkin, or any of the fellows who never do anything but walk 
round the close, and finish their copies the first day they’re 
set?” But although all this was past, he often longed, and felt 
that he was right in longing, for more time for the legitimate 
pastimes of cricket, fives, bathing, and fishing within bounds, 
in which Arthur could not yet be his companion; and he felt 
that when the young un (as he now generally called him) had 
found a pursuit and some other friend for himself, he should be 
able to give more time to the education of his own body with a 
clear conscience. 

And now what he so wished for had come to pass; he almost 
hailed it as a special providence (as indeed it was, but not for the 
reasons he gave for it — what providences are?) that Arthur 
should have singled out Martin of all fellows for a friend. “The 
old Madman is the very fellow,” thought he; “he will take him 
scrambling over half the country after birds’ eggs and flowers, 
make him run and swim and climb like an Indian, and not teach 


THE SUPPER 


204 

him a word of anything bad or keep him from his lessons. What 
luck!” And so, with more than his usual heartiness, he dived 
into his cupboard, and hauled out an old knucklebone of ham, 
and two or three bottles of beer, together with the solemn 
pewter ^ only used on state occasions; while Arthur, equally 
elated at the easy accomplishment of his first act of volition 
in the joint establishment, produced from his side a bottle of 
pickles and a pot of jam, and cleared the table. In a minute or 
two the noise of the boys coming up from supper was heard, and 
Martin knocked and was admitted, bearing his bread and cheese, 
and the three fell to with hearty good will upon the viands, 
talking faster than they ate, for all shyness disappeared in a 
moment before Tom’s bottled beer and hospitable ways. ‘'Here’s 
Arthur, a regular young town-mouse, with a natural taste for 
the woods, Martin, longing to break his neck climbing trees, 
and with a passion for young snakes.” 

“Well, I say,” sputtered out Martin eagerly, “will you come 
to-morrow, both of you, to Caldecott’s Spinney, then, for I 
know of a kestrel’s ^ nest, up a fir tree — I can’t get at it with- 
out help; and. Brown, you can climb against any one.” 

“Oh, yes, do let us go,” said Arthur; “I never saw a hawk’s 
nest, nor a hawk’s egg.” 

“You just come down to my study then, and I’ll show you 
five sorts,” said Martin. 

“Ay, the old Madman has got the best collection in the house, 
out and out,” said Tom; and then Martin, warming with unac- 
customed good cheer and the chance of a convert, launched out 
into a proposed bird’s-nesting campaign, betraying all manner 
of important secrets: a golden-crested wren’s nest near Butlin’s 
Mound, a moor-hen who was sitting on nine eggs in a pond down 
the Barby-road, and a kingfisher’s nest in a corner of the old 
canal above Brownsover Mill. He had heard, he said, that no 
one had ever got a kingfisher’s nest out perfect, and that the 
British Museum, or the Government, or somebody, had offered 
£100 to any one who could bring them a nest and eggs not dam- 

1 Tableware made of an alloy of tin. ^ ^ species of falcon or hawk. 


THE SUPPER 205 

aged. In the middle of which astounding announcement, to 
which the others were listening with open ears, and already con- 
sidering the application of the £100, a knock came to the door, 
and East’s voice was heard craving admittance. 

“There’s Harry,” said Tom; “we’ll let him in— I’ll keep him 
steady, Martin. I thought the old bOy would smell out the 
supper.” 

The fact was that Tom’s heart had already smitten him for 
not asking his “fidus Achates” ^ to the feast, although only an 
extempore affair; and though prudence and the desire to get 
Martin and Arthur together alone at first had overcome his 
scruples, he was now heartily glad to open the door, broach an- 
other bottle of beer, and hand over the old ham knuckle to the 
searching of his old friend’s pocketknife. 

“Ah, you greedy vagabonds,” said East, with his mouth full, 
“I knew there was something going on when I saw you cut off 
out of hall so quick with your suppers. What a stunning tap, 
Tom! you are a wunner for bottling the swipes.” 

“I’ve had practice enough for the sixth in my time, and 
it’s hard if I haven’t picked up a wrinkle or two for my own 
benefit.” 

“Well, old Madman, and how goes the bird’s-nesting cam- 
paign? How’s Howlett? I expect the young rooks’ll be out 
in another fortnight, and then my turn comes.” 

“There’ll be no young rooks fit for pies for a month yet; 
shows how much you know about it,” rejoined Martin, who, 
though very good friends with East, regarded him with consider- 
able suspicion for his propensity to practical jokes. 

“Scud knows nothing and cares for nothing but grub and 
mischief,” said Tom; “but young rook pie, ’specially when you’ve 
had to climb for them, is very pretty eating. However, I say. 
Scud, we’re all going after a hawk’s nest to-morrow, in Calde- 
cott’s Spinney; and if you’ll come and behave yourself, we’ll 
have a stunning climb.” 

^ “Faithful Achates.” Achates was the intimate and faithful friend of 
Aeneas, the hero of Virgil’s Aeneid. 


2o6 


VULGUSES 


“And a bathe in Aganippe.^ Hooray! I’m your man.” 

“No, no; no bathing in Aganippe; that’s where our betters 

go.” 

“Well, well, never mind, I’m for the hawk’s nest and any- 
thing that turns up.” 

And the bottled beer being finished, and his hunger appeased. 
East departed to his study, “that sneak Jones,” as he informed 
them, who had just got into the sixth and occupied the next 
study, having instituted a nightly visitation upon East and his 
chum, to their no small discomfort. 

When he was gone, Martin rose to follow, but Tom stopped 
him. “No one goes near New Row,” said he, “so you may 
just as well stop here and do your verses, and then we’ll have 
some more talk. We’ll be no end quiet; besides, no praepostor 
comes here now — we haven’t been visited once this half.” 

So the table was cleared, the cloth restored, and the three 
fell to work with Gradus and dictionary upon the morning’s 
vulgus. 

They were three very fair examples of the way in which such 
tasks were done at Rugby, in the consulship of Plancus. And 
doubtless the method is little changed, for there is nothing new 
under the sun, especially at schools. 

Now be it known unto all you boys who are at schools which 
do not rejoice in the time-honored institution of the vulgus, 
(commonly supposed to have been established by William of 
Wykeham at Winchester,” and imported to Rugby by Arnold, 
more for the sake of the lines which were learned by heart with 
it than for its own intrinsic value, as I’ve always understood), 
that it is a short exercise, in Greek or Latin verse, on a given 
subject, the minimum number of lines being fixed for each form. 
The master of the form gave out at fourth lesson on the previous 
day the subject for next morning’s vulgus, and at first lesson 
each boy had to bring his vulgus ready to be looked over, and 
with the vulgus, a certain number of lines from one of the Latin 
or Greek poets then being construed in the form had to be got by 
^ A spring on Mount Helicon, frequented by the Muses. 


VULGUSES 


207 

heart. The master at first lesson called up each boy in the form 
in order, and put him on in the lines. If he couldn’t say them, 
or seem to say them, by reading them off the master’s or some 
other boy’s book who stood near, he was sent back, and went 
below all the boys who did so say or seem to say them; but in 
either case his vulgus was looked over by the master, who gave 
and entered in his book, to the credit or discredit of the boy, so 
many marks as the composition merited. At Rugby vulgus 
and lines were the first lesson every other day in the week, or 
Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; and as there were thirty- 
eight weeks in the school year, it is obvious to the meanest 
capacity that the master of each form had to set one hundred 
and fourteen subjects every year, two hundred and twenty- 
eight every two years, and so on. Now, to persons of moderate 
invention this was a considerable task, and human nature being 
prone to repeat itself, it will not be wondered that the masters 
gave the same subjects sometimes over again after a certain 
lapse of time. To meet and rebuke this bad habit of the masters, 
the schoolboy mind, with its accustomed ingenuity, had invented 
an elaborate system of tradition. Almost every boy kept his 
own vulgus written out in a book, and these books were duly 
handed down from boy to boy, till (if the tradition has gone on 
till now) I suppose the popular boys, in whose hands bequeathed 
vulgus books have accumulated, are prepared with three or 
four vulguses on any subject in heaven or earth, or in ‘^more 
worlds than one,” which an unfortunate master can pitch upon. 
At any rate, such lucky fellows had generally one for themselves 
and one for a friend in my time. The only objection to the tradi- 
tionary method of doing your vulguses was, the risk that the 
successions might have become confused, and so that you and 
another follower of traditions should show up the same identical 
vulgus some fine morning; in which case, when it happened, con- 
siderable grief was the result — but when did such risk hinder 
boys or men from short cuts and pleasant paths? 

Now in the study that night Tom was the upholder of the 
traditionary method of vulgus doing. He carefully produced 


THE SCIENCE OF VERSE-MAKING 


208 

two large vulgus books, and began diving into them, and picking 
out a line here and an ending there (tags as they were vulgarly 
called), till he had gotten all that he thought he could make fit. 
He then proceeded to patch his tags together with the help 
of his Gradus, producing an incongruous and feeble result of 
eight elegiac lines, the minimum quantity for his form, and finish- 
ing up with two highly moral lines extra, making ten in all, 
which he cribbed entire from one of his books, beginning “O 
genus humanum,” ^ and which he himself must have used a 
dozen times before, whenever an unfortunate or wicked hero, 
of whatever nation or language under the sun, was the subject. 
Indeed, he began to have great doubts whether the master 
wouldn’t remember them, and so only threw them in as extra 
lines, because in any case they would call off attention from the 
other tags, and if detected, being extra lines, he wouldn’t be 
sent back to do two more in their place, while if they passed 
muster again he would get marks for them. 

The second method, pursued by Martin, may be called the 
dogged, or prosaic method. He no more than Tom took any 
pleasure in the task, but having no old vulgus books of his own, 
or any one’s else, could not follow the traditionary method, 
for which, too, as Tom remarked, he hadn’t the genius. Martin 
then proceeded to write down eight lines in English, of the most 
matter-of-fact kind, the first that came into his head, and to 
convert these, line by line, by main force of Gradus and diction- 
ary, into Latin that would scan. This was all he cared for, to 
produce eight lines with no false quantities or concords; whether 
the words were apt, or what the sense was, mattered nothing, 
and, as the article was all new, not a line beyond the minimum 
did the followers of the dogged method ever produce. 

The third, or artistic method, was Arthur’s. He considered 
first what point in the character or event which was the subject 
could most neatly be brought out within the limits of a vulgus, 
trying always to get his idea into the eight lines, but not binding 
himself to ten or even twelve lines if he couldn’t do this. He 
^ “0 human race.” 


MARTIWS DEN 


209 

then set to work, as much as possible without Gradus or other 
help, to clothe his idea in appropriate Latin or Greek, and would 
not be satisfied till he had polished it well up with the aptest 
and most poetic words and phrases he could get at. 

A fourth method, indeed, was used in the school, but of too 
simple a kind to require a comment. It may be called the vi- 
carious ^ method, obtained amongst big boys of lazy or bullying 
habits, and consisted simply in making clever boys whom they 
could thrash do their whole vulgus for them, and construe it to 
them afterwards; which latter is a method not to be encouraged, 
and which I strongly advise you all not to practice. Of the 
others, you will find the traditionary most troublesome, unless 
you can steal your vulguses whole {experto crede) ^ and that the 
artistic method pays the best both in marks and other ways. 

The vulguses being finished by nine o’clock, and Martin 
having rejoiced above measure in the abundance of light, and 
of Gradus and dictionary, and other conveniences almost un- 
known to him for getting through the work, and having been 
pressed by Arthur to come and do his verses there whenever he 
liked, the three boys went down to Martin’s den, and Arthur was 
initiated into the lore of birds’ eggs, to his great delight. The 
exquisite coloring and forms astonished and charmed him, who 
had scarcely ever seen any but a hen’s egg or an ostrich’s; and 
by the time he was lugged away to bed he had learned the names 
of at least twenty sorts, and dreamed of the glorious perils of 
tree-climbing and that he had found a roc’s ^ egg in the island as 
big as Sindbad’s and clouded like a tit-lark’s, in blowing which 
Martin and he had nearly been drowned in the yolk. 

1 Through the intervention of another. 

2 “Trust one who has had experience.” 

^ A fabulous bird of Arabia, so huge that it bore off elephants. 


210 


THE BIRD FANCIERS 


CHAPTER IV 

THE BIRD FANCIERS 

“I have found out a gift for my fair, 

I have found where the wood pigeons breeds' 

But let me the plunder forbear, 

She would say ’t was a barbarous deed.” 

Rowe. 

“And now, my lad, take them five shilling. 

And on my advice in future think; 

So Billy pouched them all so willing, 

And got that night disguised in drink.” 

MS. Ballad. 

The next morning at first lesson Tom was turned back in his 
lines, and so had to wait till the second round, while Martin 
and Arthur said theirs all right and got out of school at once. 
When Tom got out and ran down to breakfast at Harrowell’s 
they were missing, and Stumps informed him that they had 
swallowed dovm their breakfasts and gone off together, where, 
he couldn’t say. Tom hurried over his own breakfast, and went 
first to Martin’s study and then to his own, but no signs of the 
missing boys were to be found. He felt half angry and jealous 
of Martin — where could they be gone? 

He learned second lesson with East and the rest in no very 
good temper, and then went out into the quadrangle. About 
ten minutes before school Martin and Arthur arrived in the 
quadrangle breathless; and, catching sight of him, Arthur rushed 
up all excitement and with a bright glow on his face. 

“Oh, Tom, look here,” cried he, holding out three moor 
hen’s eggs; “we’ve been down the Barby-road to the pool Martin 
told us of last night, and just see what we’ve got.” 

Tom wouldn’t be pleased, and only looked out- for something 
to find fault with. 

“Why, young un,” said he, “what have you been after? 
You don’t mean to say you’ve been wading?” 


2II 


TOM PUT OUT 

The tone of reproach made poor little Arthur shrink up in a 
moment and look piteous, and Tom with a shrug of his shoulders 
turned his anger on Martin. 

“Well, I didn’t think. Madman, that you’d have been such a 
muff as to let him be getting wet through at this time of day. 
You might have done the wading yourself.” 

“So I did, of course, only he would come in, too, to see the 
nest. We left six eggs in; they’ll be hatched in a day or two.” 

“Hang the eggs!” said Tom; “a fellow can’t turn his back 
for a moment but all his work’s undone. He’ll be laid up for a 
week for this precious lark. I’ll be bound.” 

“Indeed, Tom, now,” pleaded Arthur, “my feet ain’t wet, 
for Martin made me take off my shoes and stockings and trou- 
sers.” 

“But they are wet and dirty, too — can’t I see?” answered 
Tom; “and you’ll be called up and floored when the master 
sees what a state you’re in. You haven’t looked at second lesson, 
you know.” Oh, Tom, you old humbug! you to be upbraiding 
any one with not learning their lessons. If you hadn’t been 
floored yourself now at first lesson, do you mean to say you 
wouldn’t have been with them? and you’ve taken away all 
poor little Arthur’s joy and pride in his first birds’ eggs, and he 
goes and puts them down in the study, and takes down his books 
with a sigh, thinking he has done something horribly wrong, 
whereas he has learned on in advance much more than will be 
done at second lesson. 

But the old Madman hasn’t, and gets called up and makes 
some frightful shots, losing about ten places, and all but getting 
floored. This somewhat appeases Tom’s wrath, and by the end 
of the lesson he has regained his temper. And afterwards in 
their study he begins to get right again, as he watches Arthur’s 
intense joy at seeing Martin blowing the eggs and gluing them 
carefully on to bits of cardboard, and notes the anxious loving 
looks which the little fellow casts sidelong at him. And then he 
thinks, “What an ill-tempered beast I am! Here’s just what I 
was wishing for last night come about, and I’m spoiling it all,” 


212 


BIRD’S-NESTING 


and in another five minutes has swallowed the last mouthful 
of his bile,^ and is repaid by seeing his little sensitive plant ex- 
pand again, and sun itself in his smiles. 

After dinner the Madman is busy with the preparations for 
their expedition, fitting new straps on to his climbing irons, filling 
large pill boxes with cotton wool, and sharpening East’s small 
ax. They carry all their munitions into calling-over, and directly 
afterwards, having dodged such praepostors as are on the look- 
out for fags at cricket, the four set off at a smart trot down the 
Lawford footpath straight for Caldecott’s Spinney and the 
hawk’s nest. 

Martin leads the way in high feather; it is quite a new sensa- 
tion to him getting companions, and he finds it very pleasant, 
and means to show them all manner of proofs of his science 
and skill. Brown and East may be better at cricket and foot- 
ball and games, thinks he, but out in the fields and woods see 
if I can’t teach them something. He has taken the leadership 
already, and strides away in front with his climbing irons 
strapped under one arm, his pecking bag ^ under the other, and 
his pockets and hat full of pill boxes, cotton wool, and other 
etceteras. Each of the others carries a pecking bag, and East 
his hatchet. 

When they had crossed three or four fields without a check, 
Arthur began to lag, and Tom seeing this shouted to Martin to 
pull up a bit, “We ain’t out hare and hounds — what’s the good 
of grinding on at this rate?” 

“There’s the spinney,” said Martin, pulling up on the brow 
of a slope at the bottom of which lay Lawford brook, and point- 
ing to the top of the opposite slope; “the nest is in one of those 
high fir trees at this end. And down by the brook there, I know 
of a sedge bird’s nest; we’ll go and look at it coming back.” 

“Oh, come on, don’t let us stop,” said Arthur, who was getting 
excited at the sight of the wood; so they broke into a trot again, 
and were soon across the brook, up the slope, and into the spin- 
ney. Here they advanced as noiselessly as possible, lest keepers 

* Ill-temper. 2 gags for small stones. 


BIRD’S-NESTING 2 1 3 

or Other enemies should be about, and stopped at the foot of a 
tall fir, at the top of which Martin pointed out with pride the 
kestrel’s nest, the object of their quest. 

“Oh, where! which is it?” asks Arthur, gaping up in the air, 
and having the most vague idea of what it would be like. 

“There, don’t you see?” said East, pointing to a lump of 
mistletoe in the next tree, which was a beech; he saw that Martin 
and Tom were busy with the climbing irons, and couldn’t 
resist the temptation of hoaxing. Arthur stared and wondered 
more than ever. 

“Well, how curious! it doesn’t look a bit like what I expected,” 
said he. 

“Very odd birds, kestrels,” said East, looking waggishly at his 
victim, who was still star-gazing. 

“But I thought it was in a fir tree?” objected Arthur. 

“Ah, don’t you know? That’s a new sort of fir which old Cal- 
decott brought from the Himalayas.” 

“Really!” said Arthur; “I’m glad I know that — ^how unlike 
our firs they are! They do very well, too, here, don’t they? 
The spinney’s full of them.” 

“What’s that humbug he’s telling you?” cried Tom, looking 
up, having caught the word Himalayas, and suspecting what 
East was after. 

“Only about this fir,” said Arthur, putting his hand on the 
stem of the beech. 

“Fir!” shouted Tom; “why, you don’t mean to say, young 
un, you don’t know a beech when you see one?” 

Poor little Arthur looked terribly ashamed, and East exploded 
in laughter which made the wood ring. 

“I’ve hardly ever seen any trees,” faltered Arthur. 

“What a shame to hoax him. Scud! ” cried Martin. “ Never 
mind, Arthur, you shall know more about trees than he does in a 
week or two.” 

“And isn’t that the kestrel’s nest, then?” asked Arthur. 

“That! why, that’s a piece of mistletoe. There’s the nest, 
that lump of sticks up this fir.” 


214 


BIRD’S-NESTING 


“Don’t believe him, Arthur,” struck in the incorrigible 
East; “I just saw an old magpie go out of it.” 

Martin did not deign to reply to this sally, except by a grunt, 
as he buckled the last buckle of his climbing irons; and Arthur 
looked reproachfully at East without speaking. 

But now came the tug of war. It was a very difficult tree to 
climb until the branches were reached, the first of which was 
some fourteen feet up, for the trunk was too large at the bottom 
to be swarmed; in fact, neither of the boys could reach more 
than half round it with their arms. Martin and Tom, both of 
whom had irons on, tried it without success at first; the fir 
bark broke away where they struck the irons in as soon as they 
leaned any weight on their feet, and the grip of their arms wasn’t 
enough to keep them up; so, after getting up three or four feet, 
down they came shthering ^ to the ground barking their arms 
and faces. They were furious, and East sat by laughing and 
shouting at each failure, “Two to one on the old magpie!” 

“We must try a pyramid,” said Tom at last. “Now, Scud, 
you lazy rascal, stick yourself against the tree!” 

“I dare say! and have you standing on my shoulders with 
the irons on; what do you think my skin’s made of? ” However, 
up he got, and leaned against the tree, putting his head down 
and clasping it with his arms as far as he could. “Now then. 
Madman,” said Tom, “you next.” 

“No, I’m lighter than you; you go next.” So Tom got on 
East’s shoulders, and grasped the tree above, and then Martin 
scrambled up on to Tom’s shoulders, amidst the totterings and 
groanings of the pyramid, and, with a spring which sent his sup- 
porters howling to the ground, clasped the stem some ten feet 
up, and remained clinging. For a moment or two they thought 
he couldn’t get up, but then, holding on with arms and teeth, 
he worked first one iron, then the other firmly into the bark, 
got another grip with his arms, and in another minute had hold 
of the lowest branch. 

“All up with the old magpie now,” said East; and, after a 
1 Sliding. 


BIRD’S-NESTING 215 

minute’s rest, up went Martin, hand over hand, watched by 
Arthur with fearful eagerness. 

“Isn’t it very dangerous?” said he. 

“Not a bit,” answered Tom; “you can’t hurt if you only get 
good handhold. Try every branch with a good pull before 
you trust it, and then up you go.” 

Martin was now amongst the small branches close to the nest, 
and away dashed the old bird and soared up above the trees, 
watching the intruder. 

“All right — ^four eggs!” shouted he. 

“Take ’em all!” shouted East; “that’ll be one apiece.” 

“No, no! leave one, and then she won’t care,” said Tom. 

We boys had an idea that birds couldn’t count,” and were 
quite content as long as you left one egg. I hope it is so. 

Martin carefully put one egg into each of his boxes and the 
third into his mouth, the only other place of safety, and came 
down like a lamplighter. All went well till he was within ten 
feet of the ground, when, as the trunk enlarged, his hold got 
less and less firm, and at last down he came with a run, tumbling 
on to his back on the turf, spluttering and spitting out the re- 
mains of the great egg, which had broken by the jar of his fall. 

“Ugh, ugh! something to drink — ugh! it was addled,” 
spluttered he, while the wood rang again with the merry laughter 
of East and Tom. 

Then they examined the prizes, gathered up their things, and 
went off to the brook, where Martin swallowed huge drafts of 
water to get rid of the taste; and they visited the sedge bird’s 
nest, and from thence struck across the country in high glee, 
beating the hedges and brakes as they went along; and Arthur 
at last, to his intense delight, was allowed to climb a small 
hedgerow oak for a magpie’s nest with Tom, who kept all round 
him like a mother, and showed him where to hold and how to 
throw his weight; and though he was in a great fright, didn’t 
show it; and was applauded by all for his lissomeness. 

They crossed a road soon afterwards, and there close to them 
lay a heap of charming pebbles. 


2i6 


WHAT IS LARCENY? 


“Look here,” shouted East, “here’s luck! I’ve been longing 
for some good honest pecking this half hour. Let’s fill the bags, 
and have no more of this foozling bird’s-nesting.” 

No one objected, so each boy filled the fustian bag he carried 
full of stones; they crossed into the next field, Tom and East 
taking one side of the hedges, and the other two the other 
side. Noise enough they made certainly, but it was too early 
in the season for the young birds, and the old birds were too 
strong on the wing for our young marksmen, and flew out of 
shot after the first discharge. But it was great fun, rushing 
along the hedgerows, and discharging stone after stone at 
blackbirds and chaffinches, though no result in the shape of 
slaughtered birds was obtained; and Arthur soon entered into 
it, and rushed to head back the birds, and shouted, and threw, 
and tumbled into ditches and over and through hedges, as wild 
as the Madman himself. 

Presently the party, in full cry after an old blackbird (who 
was evidently used to the thing and enjoyed the fun, for he 
would wait till they came close to him and then fly on for forty 
yards or so, and, with an impudent flicker of his tail, dart into 
the depths of the quickset came beating down a high double 
hedge, two on each side. 

“There he is again,” “Head him,” “Let drive,” “I had him 
there,” “Take care where you’re throwing. Madman,” the shouts 
might have been heard a quarter of a mile off. They were heard 
some two hundred yards off by a farmer and two of his shep- 
herds, who were doctoring sheep in a fold in the next field. 

Now, the farmer in question rented a house and yard situate 
at the end of the field in which the young bird fanciers had ar- 
rived, which house and yard he didn’t occupy or keep any one 
else in. Nevertheless, like a brainless and unreasoning Briton, 
he persisted in maintaining on the premises a large stock of 
cocks, hens, and other poultry. Of course, all sorts of depreda- 
tors visited the place from time to time: foxes and gypsies 
wrought havoc in the night; while in the daytime, I regret to 
^ Hedge or thicket. 


THE TROUBLESOME DUCK 217 

have to confess that visits from the Rugby boys, and conse- 
quent disappearances of ancient and respectable fowls, were 
not unfrequent. Tom and East had during the period of their 
outlawry visited the barn in question for felonious purposes, 
and on one occasion had conquered and slain a duck there, 
and borne away the carcass triumphantly, hidden in their 
handkerchiefs. However, they were sickened of the practice 
by the trouble and anxiety which the wretched duck’s body 
caused them. They carried it to Sally Harrowell’s, in hopes of a 
good supper; but she, after examining it, made a long face and 
refused to dress or have anything to do with it. Then they 
took it into their study and began plucking it themselves; 
but what to do with the feathers, where to hide them? 

‘^Good gracious, Tom, what a lot of feathers a duck has!” 
groaned East, holding a bag full in his hand, and looking dis- 
consolately at the carcass, not yet half plucked. 

“And I do think he’s getting high,^ too, already,” said Tom, 
smelling at him cautiously, “so we must finish him up soon.” 

“Yes, all very well, but how are we to cook him? I’m sure 
I ain’t going to try it on in the hall or passages; we can’t afford 
to be roasting ducks about, our character’s too bad.” 

“I wish we were rid of the brute,” said Tom, throwing him 
on the table in disgust. And after a day or two more it became 
clear that got rid of he must be; so they packed him and sealed 
him up in brown paper, and put him in the cupboard of an un- 
occupied study, where he was found in the holidays by the ma- 
tron, a gruesome body. 

They had never been duck-hunting there since, but others 
had, and the bold yeoman was very sore on the subject, and bent 
on making an example of the first boys he could catch. So he 
and his shepherds crouched behind the hurdles, and watched 
the party who were approaching all unconscious. 

Why should that old guinea fowl be lying out in the hedge 
just at this particular moment of all the year? Who can say? 
Guinea fowls always are — so are all other things, animals and 
1 Becoming tainted. 


2i8 


A SUDDEN FLIGHT 


persons, requisite for getting one into scrapes — always ready 
when any mischief can come of them. At any rate, just under 
East’s nose popped out the old guinea hen, scuttling along and 
shrieking “Come back, come back,” at the top of her voice. 
Either of the other three might perhaps have withstood the 
temptation, but East first lets drive the stone he has in his hand 
at her, and then rushes to turn her into the hedge again. He 
succeeds, and then they are all at it for dear life, up and down 
the hedge in full cry, the “Come back, come back,” getting 
shriller and fainter every minute. 

Meantime, the farmer and his men steal over the hurdles 
and creep down the hedge towards the scene of action. They 
are almost within a stone’s throw of Martin, who is pressing the 
unlucky chase hard, when Tom catches sight of them, and sings 
out, “Louts, ’ware louts, your side! Madman, look ahead!” 
and then catching hold of Arthur, hurries him away across the 
field towards Rugby as hard as they can tear. Had he been by 
himself he would have stayed to see it out with the others, but 
now his heart sinks and all his pluck goes. The idea of being 
led up to the Doctor with Arthur for bagging fowls quite un- 
mans and takes half the run out of him. 

However, no boys are more able to take care of themselves 
than East and Martin; they dodge the pursuers, slip through a 
gap, and come pelting after Tom and Arthur, whom they catch 
up in no time; the farmer and his men are making good run- 
ning about a field behind. Tom wishes to himself that they had 
made off in any other direction, but now they are all in for it 
together, and must see it out. “You won’t leave the young un, 
will you? ” says he, as they haul poor little Arthur, already losing 
wind from the fright, through the next hedge. “Not we,” 
is the answer from both. The next hedge is a stiff one; the pur- 
suers gain horribly on them, and they only just pull Arthur 
through, with two great rents in his trousers, as the foremost 
shepherd comes up on the other side. As they start into the 
next field, they are aware of two figures walking down the foot- 
path in the middle of it, and recognize Holmes and Diggs taking 


A DEBATE 


219 

a constitutional. Those good-natured fellows immediately 
shout “On.” “Let’s go to them and surrender,” pants Tom. — 
“ Agreed.” — ^And in another minute the four boys, to the great 
astonishment of those worthies, rush breathless up to Holmes 
and Diggs, who pull up to see what is the matter; and then the 
whole is explained by the appearance of the farmer and his men, 
who unite their forces and bear down on the knot of boys. 

There is no time to explain, and Tom’s heart beats frightfully 
quick as he ponders, “Will they stand by us?” 

The farmer makes a rush at East and collars him; and that 
young gentleman, with unusual discretion, instead of kicking 
his shins, looks appealingly at Holmes and stands still. 

“Hullo there, not so fast,” says Holmes, who is bound to 
stand up for them till they are proved in the wrong. “Now 
what’s all this about?” 

“I’ve got the young varmint at last, have I!” pants the 
farmer; “why, they’ve been a-skulking about my yard and 
stealing my fowls, that’s where ’tis; and if I doan’t have they 
flogged for it, every one on ’em, my name ain’t Thompson.” 

Holmes looks grave, and Diggs’ face falls. They are quite 
ready to fight, no boys in the school more so; but they are prae- 
postors and understand their office, and can’t uphold unright- 
eous causes. 

“I haven’t been near his old barn this half,” cries East. 
“Nor I,” “Nor I,” chime in Tom and Martin. 

“Now, Willum, didn’t you see ’em there last week?” 

“Ees, I seen ’em sure enough,” says Willum, grasping a 
prong he carried, and preparing for action. 

The boys deny stoutly, and Willum is driven to admit that 
“if it worn’t they ’twas chaps as like ’em as two peas’n ”; and 
“ leastways he’ll swear he see’d them two in the yard last Martin- 
mas,” indicating East and Tom. 

Holmes has had time to meditate. “Now, sir,” says he to 
Willum, “you see you can’t remember what you have seen, and 
I believe the boys.” 

“I doan’t care,” blusters the farmer; “they was arter my 


220 


A DEBATE 


fowls to-day, that’s enough for I. Willum, you catch hold 
o’ t’other chap. They ’ve been a-sneaking about this two hours, 
I tells ’ee,” shouted he, as Holmes stands between Martin and 
Willum, “and have druv a matter of a dozen young pullets 
pretty nigh to death.” 

“Oh, there’s a whacker!” exclaimed East; “we haven’t been 
within a hundred yards of his barn; we haven’t been up here 
above ten minutes, and we’ve seen nothing but a tough old 
guinea hen, who ran like a greyhound.” 

“Indeed, that’s all true. Holmes, upon my honor,” added 
Tom; “we weren’t after his fowls; guinea hen ran out of the 
hedge under our feet, and we’ve seen nothing else.” 

“Drat their talk. Thee catch hold o’ t’other, Willum, and 
come along wi’un.” 

“Farmer Thompson,” said Holmes, warning off Willum 
and the prong with his stick, while Diggs faced the other shep- 
herd, cracking his fingers like pistol shots, “now listen to reason 
— the boys haven’t been after your fowls, that’s plain.” 

“Tells ’ee I see’d ’em. Who be you, I should like to know?” 

“Never you mind. Farmer,” answered Holmes. “And now 
I’ll just tell you what it is — you ought to be ashamed of your- 
self for leaving all that poultry about, with no one to watch it, 
so near the school. You deserve to have it aU stolen. So if 
you choose to come up to the Doctor with them, I shall go with 
you and tell him what I think of it.” 

The farmer began to take Holmes for a master; besides, he 
wanted to get back to his flock. Corporal punishment was out 
of the question, the odds were too great; so he began to hint 
at paying for the damage. Arthur jumped at this, offering to pay 
anything, and the farmer immediately valued the guinea hen 
at half a sovereign. 

“Half a sovereign!” cried East, now released from the farm- 
er’s grip; “well, that is a good one! the old hen ain’t hurt a bit, 
and she’s seven years old, I know, and as tough as whipcord; 
she couldn’t lay another egg to save her life.” 

It was at last settled that they should pay the farmer two 


221 


HOLMES LECTURES ON SCHOOL LARCENY 

shillings, and his man one shilling, and so the matter ended, 
to the unspeakable relief of Tom, who hadn’t been able to say a 
word, being sick at heart at the idea of what the Doctor would 
think of him; and now the whole party of boys marched off 
down the footpath towards Rugby. Holmes, who was one of 
the best boys in the school, began to improve the occasion. 
“Now, you youngsters,” said he, as he marched along in the 
middle of them, “mind this; you’re very well out of this scrape. 
Don’t you go near Thompson’s barn again, do you hear?” 

Profuse promises from all, especially East. 

“Mind, I don’t ask questions,” went on Mentor, “but I 
rather think some of you have been there before this after his 
chickens. Now, knocking over other people’s chickens and 
running off with them is stealing. It’s a nasty word, but that’s 
the plain English of it. If the chickens were dead and lying in a 
shop, you wouldn’t take them, I know that, any more than you 
would apples out of Griffith’s basket; but there’s* no real differ- 
ence between chickens running about and apples on a tree, 
and the same articles in a shop. I wish our morals were sounder 
in such matters. There’s nothing so mischievous as these school 
distinctions, which jumble up right and wrong, and justify 
things in us for which poor boys would be sent to prison.” And 
good old Holmes delivered his soul on the walk home of many 
wise sayings, and, as the song says, — 

“ Gee’d ’em a sight of good advice,” — 

which same sermon sank into them all more or less, and very 
penitent they were for several hours. But truth compels me to 
admit that East at any rate forgot it all in a week, but remem- 
bered the insult which had been put upon him by Farmer Thomp- 
son, and with the Tadpole and other hair-brained youngsters 
committed a raid on the barn soon afterwards, in which they 
were caught by the shepherds and severely handled, besides 
having to pay eight shillings, all the money they had in the world, 
to escape being taken up to the Doctor. 

Martin became a constant inmate in the joint study from this 


222 


ARTHUR SEALS HIS FRIENDSHIP 


time, and Arthur took to him so kindly that Tom couldn’t 
resist slight fits of jealousy, which, however, he managed to keep 
to himself. The kestrel’s eggs had not been broken, strange to 
say, and formed the nucleus of Arthur’s collection, at which 
Martin worked heart and soul; and introduced Arthur to How- 
lett the bird fancier, and instructed him in the rudiments of the 
art of stuffing. In token of his gratitude, Arthur allowed Martin 
to tattoo a small anchor on one of his wrists, which decoration, 
however, he carefully concealed from Tom. Before the end of 
the half year he had trained into a bold climber and good runner, 
and, as Martin had foretold, knew twice as much about trees, 
birds, flowers, and many other things, as our good-hearted and 
facetious young friend, Harry East. 

CHAPTER V 

THE EIGHT 

Surgebat Macnevisius 
Et mox jactabat ultro, 

Pugnabo tua gratia 
Feroci hoc Mactwoltro.^^ 

Etonian. 

There is a certain sort of fellow, we who are used to studying 
boys all know him well enough, of whom you can predicate 
with almost positive certainty, after he has been a month at 
school, that he is sure to have a fight, and with almost equal 
certainty that he will have but one. Tom Brown was one of 
these; and as it is our well-weighed intention to give a full, true, 
and correct account of Tom’s only single combat with a school- 
fellow in the manner of our old friend Bell’s Life,^ let those 
young persons whose stomachs are not strong, or who think a 
good set-to with the weapons which God has given us all an un- 
civilized, unchristian, or ungentlemanly affair, just skip this 
chapter at once, for it won’t be to their taste. 

It was not at all usual in those days for two Schoolhouse boys 
to have a fight. Of course there were exceptions, when some, 
1 A sporting paper, published in London. 


223 


FIGHTING IN GENERAL 

cross-grained, hard-headed fellow came up, who would never 
be happy unless he was quarreling with his nearest neighbors, 
or when there was some class dispute, between the fifth form 
and the fags, for instance, which required bloodletting; and a 
champion was picked out on each side tacitly, who settled the 
matter by a good hearty mill. But for the most part, the con- 
stant use of those surest keepers of the peace, the boxing gloves, 
kept the Schoolhouse boys from fighting one another. Two or 
three nights in every week the gloves were brought out, either 
in the hall or fifth-form room; and every boy who was ever 
likely to fight at all knew all his neighbors’ prowess perfectly 
well, and could tell to a nicety what chance he would have in a 
stand-up fight with any other boy in the house. But of course 
no such experience could be gotten as regarded boys in other 
houses; and as most of the other houses were more or less jealous 
of the Schoolhouse, collisions were frequent. 

After all, what would life be without fighting, I should like 
to know? From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly under- 
stood, is the business, the real, highest, honestest business of 
every son of man. Every one who is worth his salt has his ene- 
mies, who must be beaten, be they evil thoughts and habits in 
himself or spiritual wickednesses in high places, or Russians,” 
or Border rufiGians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, who will not let him 
live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them. 

It is no good for Quakers, or any other body of men, to uplift 
their voices against fighting. Human nature is too strong for 
them, and they don’t follow their own precepts. Every soul of 
them is doing his own piece of fighting, somehow and somewhere. 
The world might be a better world without fighting, for anything 
I know, but it wouldn’t be our world; and therefore I am dead 
against crying peace when there is no peace, and isn’t meant 
to be. I am as sorry as any man to see folk fighting the wrong 
people and the wrong things, but I’d a deal sooner see them 
doing that than that they should have no fight in them. So 
having recorded, and being about to record, my hero’s fights 
of all sorts, with all sorts of enemies, I shall now proceed to give 


HOW THE FIGHT AROSE 


224 

an account of his passage-at-arms with the only one of his school- 
fellows whom he ever had to encounter in this manner. 

It was drawing towards the close of Arthur’s first half year, 
and the May evenings were lengthening out. Locking-up was 
not till eight o’clock, and everybody was beginning to talk about 
what he would do in the holidays. The shell, in which form all 
our dramatis persons now are, were reading amongst other things 
the last book of Homer’s Iliads and had worked through it as 
far as the speeches of the women over Hector’s body. It is a 
whole schoolday, and four or five of the Schoolhouse boys 
(amongst whom are Arthur, Tom, and East) are preparing third 
lesson together. They have finished the regulation forty lines, 
and are for the most part getting very tired, notwithstanding 
the exquisite pathos of Helen’s lamentation. And now several 
long four-syllabled words come together, and the boy with the 
dictionary strikes work. 

‘H am not going to look out any more vrords,” says he; “we’ve 
done the quantity. Ten to one we shan’t get so far. Let’s 
go out into the close.” 

“Come along, boys,” cries East, always ready to leave the 
grind, as he called it; “our old coach is laid up, you know, and 
we shall have one of the new masters, who’s sure to go slow and 
let us down easy.” 

So an adjournment to the close was carried nem. con.,^ little 
Arthur not daring to uplift his voice; but, being deeply interested 
in what they were reading, stayed quietly behind and learned on 
for his own pleasure. 

As East had said, the regular master of the form was unwell, 
and they were to be heard by one of the new masters, quite a 
young man, who had only just left the University. Certainly 
it would be hard lines, if, by dawdling as much as possible in 
coming in and taking their places, entering into long-winded 
explanations of what was the usual course of the regular master 
of the form, and others of the stock contrivances of boys for 
wasting time in school, they could not spin out the lesson so that 
^ Nemine contradicente means “ without a dissenting voice.” 


HOW THE FIGHT AROSE 225 

he should not work them through more than the forty lines; 
as to which quantity there was a perpetual fight going on between 
the master and his form, the latter insisting, and enforcing by 
passive resistance, that it was the prescribed quantity of Homer 
for a shell lesson, the former that there was no fixed quantity, 
but that they must always be ready to go on to fifty or sixty 
lines if there were time within the hour. However, notwith- 
standing all their efforts, the new master got on horribly quick; 
he seemed to have the bad taste to be really interested in the 
lesson, and to be trying to work them up into something like 
appreciation of it, giving them good, spirited English words 
instead of the wretched bald stuff into which they rendered 
poor old Homer, and construing over each piece himself to them, 
after each boy, to show them how it should be done. 

Now the clock strikes the three quarters; there is only a 
quarter of an hour more; but the forty lines are all but done. 
So the boys, one after another, who are called up, stick more and 
more, and make balder and ever more bald work of it. The poor 
young master is pretty near beat by this time, and feels ready 
to knock his head against the wall, or his fingers against some- 
body else’s head. So he gives up altogether the lower and middle 
parts of the form, and looks round in despair at the boys on the 
top bench, to see if there is one out of whom he can strike a 
spark or two, and who will be too chivalrous to murder the most 
beautiful utterances of the most beautiful woman” of the old 
world. His eye rests on Arthur, and he calls him up to finish 
construing Helen’s speech. Whereupon all the other boys draw 
long breaths, and begin to stare about and take it easy. They 
are all safe; Arthur is the head of the form, and sure to be able 
to construe, and that will tide on safely till the hour strikes. 

Arthur proceeds to read out the passage in Greek before con- 
struing it, as the custom is. Tom, who isn’t paying much atten- 
tion, is suddenly caught by the falter in his voice as he reads 
the two lines, — 

dXXa <Ti> t6v y iTriea-fft irapaKpafievoi KaripvKes, 

T ay avo(f>poa(>vri kuI ffots ay avoh iirhaaivn 


226 HOW THE FIGHT AROSE 

He looks up at Arthur. “Why, bless us,” thinks he, “what 
can be the matter with the young un? He’s never going to get 
floored. He’s sure to have learned to the end.” Next moment 
he is reassured by the spirited tone in which Arthur begins con- 
struing, and betakes himself to drawing dogs’ heads in his note- 
book, while the master, evidently enjoying the change, turns 
his back on the middle bench and stands before Arthur, beating 
a sort of time with his hand and foot, and saying, “Yes, yes,” 
“Very well,” as Arthur goes on. 

But as he nears the fatal two lines Tom catches that falter 
and again looks up. He sees that there is something the matter, 
Arthur can hardly get on at all. What can it be? 

Suddenly at this point Arthur breaks down altogether, and 
fairly bursts out crying, and dashes the cuff of his jacket across 
his eyes, blushing up to the roots of his hair, and feeling as if he 
should like to go down suddenly through the floor. The whole 
form are taken aback; most of them stare stupidly at him, 
while those who are gifted with presence of mind find their 
places and look steadily at their books, in hopes of not catching 
the master’s eye and getting called up in Arthur’s place. 

The master looks puzzled for a moment, and then seeing, as 
the fact is, that the boy is really affected to tears by the most 
touching thing in Homer, perhaps in all profane poetry put to- 
gether, steps up to him and lays his hand kindly on his shoulder, 
saying, “Never mind, my little man, you’ve construed very 
well. Stop a minute, there’s no hurry.” 

Now, as luck would have it, there sat next above Tom on that 
day, in the middle bench of the form, a big boy, by name Wil- 
liams, generally supposed to be the cock of the shell, therefore 
of all the school below the fifths. The small boys, who are 
great speculators on the prowess of their elders, used to hold 
forth to one another about Williams’s great strength, and to dis- 
cuss whether East or Brown would take a licking from him. 
He was called Slogger Williams, from the force with which it 
was supposed he could hit. In the main, he was a rough, good- 
natured fellow enough, but very much alive to his own dignity. 


HOW THE FIGHT AROSE 227 

He reckoned himself the king of the form, and kept up his posi- 
tion with the strong hand, especially in the matter of forcing 
boys not to construe more than the legitimate forty lines. He 
had already grunted and grumbled to himself when Arthur 
went on reading beyond the forty lines. But now that he had 
broken down just in the middle of all the long words, the Slog- 
ger’s wrath was fairly roused. 

“Sneaking little brute,” muttered he, regardless of prudence, 
“clapping on the waterworks just in the hardest place; see if I 
don’t punch his head after fourth lesson.” 

“Whose?” said Tom, to whom the remark seemed to be ad- 
dressed. 

“Why, that little sneak Arthur’s,” replied Williams. 

“No, you shan’t,” said Tom. 

“Hullo!” exclaimed Williams, looking at Tom with great 
surprise for a moment, and then giving him a sudden dig in 
the ribs with his elbow, which sent Tom’s books flying on to the 
floor, and called the attention of the master, who turned sud- 
denly round, and, seeing the state of things, said, — 

“Williams, go down three places, and then go on.” 

The Slogger found his legs very slowly, and proceeded to go 
below Tom and two other boys with great disgust, and then, 
turning round and facing the master, said, “I haven’t learned 
any more, sir; our lesson is only forty lines.” 

“Is that so?” said the master, appealing generally to the top 
bench. No answer. 

“Who is the head boy of the form?” said he, waxing wroth. 

“Arthur, sir,” answered three or four boys, indicating our 
friend. 

“Oh, your name’s Arthur. Well, now, what is the length of 
your regular lesson?” 

Arthur hesitated a moment, and then said, “We call it only 
forty lines, sir.” 

“How do you mean, you call it?” 

“Well, sir, Mr. Graham says we ain’t to stop there when 
there’s time to construe more.” 


228 


HOW THE FIGHT AROSE 

“I understand,” said the master. “Williams, go down three 
more places, and write me out the lesson in Greek and English. 
And now, Arthur, finish construing.” 

“Oh! would I be in Arthur’s shoes after fourth lesson?” said 
the little boys to one another; but Arthur finished Helen’s 
speech without any further catastrophe, and the clock struck 
four, which ended third lesson. 

Another hour was occupied in preparing and saying fourth 
lesson, during which Williams was bottling up his wrath; and 
when five struck, and the lessons for the day were over, he 
prepared to take summary vengeance on the innocent cause of 
his misfortune. 

Tom was detained in school a few minutes after the rest, and 
on coming out into the quadrangle, the first thing he saw was a 
small ring of boys, applauding Wilhams, who was holding Arthur 
by the collar. 

“There, you young sneak,” said he, giving Arthur a cuff 
on the head with his other hand, “what made you say 
that”— 

“Hullo!” said Tom, shouldering into the crowd, “you drop 
that, Williams; you shan’t touch him.” 

“Who’ll stop me?” said the Slogger, raising his hand again. 

“I,” said Tom; and, suiting the action to the word, struck 
the arm which held Arthur’s arm so sharply that the Slogger 
dropped it with a start, and turned the full current of his wrath 
on Tom. 

“Will you fight?” 

“Yes, of course.” 

“Huzza, there’s going to be a fight between Slogger Williams 
and Tom Brown!” 

The news ran like wildfire about, and many boys who were on 
their way to tea at their several houses turned back, and sought 
the back of the chapel, where the fights come off. 

“Just run and tell East to come and back me,” said Tom to 
a small Schoolhouse boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell’s, 
just stopping for a moment to poke his head into the School- 


THE CHALLENGE 229 

house hall, where the lower boys were already at tea, and sing 
out, “Fight! Tom Brown and Slogger Williams.” 

Up start half the boys at once, leaving bread, eggs, butter, 
sprats, and all the rest to take care of themselves. The greater 
part of the remainder follow in a minute, after swallowing their 
tea, carrying their food in their hands to consume as they go. 
Three or four only remain, who steal the butter of the more 
impetuous, and make to themselves an unctuous feast. 

In another minute East and Martin tear through the quad- 
rangle, carrying a sponge, and arrive at the scene of action just 
as the combatants are beginning to strip. 

Tom felt he had got his work cut out for him, as he stripped 
off his jacket, waistcoat, and braces. East tied his handkerchief 
round his waist, and rolled up his shirt sleeves for him, “Now, 
old boy, don’t you open your mouth to say a word, or try to 
help yourself a bit, we’ll do all that; you keep all your breath 
and strength for the Slogger.” Martin meanwhile folded the 
clothes, and put them under the chapel rails; and now Tom, 
with East to handle him and Martin to give him a knee,^ steps 
out on the turf and is ready for all that may come; and here is 
the Slogger too, all stripped and thirsting for the fray. 

It doesn’t look a fair match at first glance: Williams is nearly 
two inches taller, and probably a long year older than his op- 
ponent, and he is very strongly made about the arms and shoul- 
ders; “peels well,” as the little knot of big fifth-form boys, the 
amateurs, say, who stand outside the ring of little boys, looking 
complacently on, but taking no active part in the proceedings. 
But down below he is not so good by any means, no spring from 
the loins, and feebleish, not to say shipwrecky, about the knees. 
Tom, on the contrary, though not half so strong in the arms, 
is good all over, straight, hard, and springy, from neck to ankle, 
better, perhaps, in his legs than anywhere. Besides, you can 
see by the clear white of his eye and fresh bright look of his skin 
that he is in tip-top training, able to do all he knows; while 
the Slogger looks rather sodden,^ as if he didn’t take much exer- 

1 A knee to sit on between the rounds. ^ Having flabby muscles. 


EARLY ROUNDS 


230 

cise and ate too much tuck.^ The timekeeper is chosen, a large 
ring made, and the two stand up opposite one another for a 
moment, giving us time just to make our little observations. 

“If Tom’ll only condescend to fight with his head and heels,” 
as East mutters to Martin, “we shall do.” 

But seemingly he won’t, for there he goes in, making play 
with both hands. “Hard all” is the word; the two stand to one 
another like men; rally follows rally in quick succession, each 
fighting as if he thought to finish the whole thing out of hand. 
“Can’t last at this rate,” say the knowing ones, while the par- 
tisans of each make the air ring with their shouts and counter- 
shouts of encouragement, approval, and defiance. 

“Take it easy, take it easy — keep away, let him come after 
you,” implores East, as he wipes Tom’s face after the first 
round with wet sponge, while he sits back on Martin’s knee, 
supported by the Madman’s long arms, which tremble a little 
from excitement. 

“Time’s up,” calls the timekeeper. 

“There he goes again, hang it all!” growls East, as his man 
is at it again as hard as ever. A very severe round follows, in 
which Tom gets out and out the worst of it, and is at last hit 
clean off his legs, and deposited on the grass by a right-hander 
from the Slogger. 

Loud shouts rise from the boys of Slogger’s house, and the 
Schoolhouse are silent and vicious, ready to pick quarrels any- 
where. 

“Two to one in half crowns on the big un,” says Rattle, one 
of the amateurs, a tall fellow, in thunder-and-lightning waist- 
coat, and puffy, good-natured face. 

“Done!” says Groove, another amateur of quieter look, 
taking out his notebook to enter it, for our friend Rattle some- 
times forgets these little things. 

Meantime, East is freshening up Tom with the sponges for 
next round, and has set two other boys to rub his hands. 

“Tom, old boy,” whispers he, “this may be fun for you, but 
^ Sweetmeats. 


HEAD FIGHTING 231 

it’s death to me. He’ll hit all the fight out of you in another 
five minutes, and then I shall go and drown myself in the 
island ditch. Feint him — use your legs! draw him about! he’ll 
lose his wind then in no time, and you can go into him. Hit 
at his body, too; we’ll take care of his frontispiece by and by.” 

Tom felt the wisdom of the counsel, and saw already that he 
couldn’t go in and finish the Slogger off at mere hammer and 
tongs, so changed his tactics completely in the third round. He 
now fights cautious, getting away from and parrying the Slog- 
ger’s lunging hits, instead of trying to counter, and leading his 
enemy a dance all round the ring after him. “He’s funking; go 
in, Williams,” “Catch him up,” “Finish him off,” scream the 
small boys of the Slogger party. 

“Just what we want,” thinks East, chuckling to himself as 
he sees Williams, excited by these shouts, and thinking the game 
in his own hands, blowing himself in his exertions to get to 
close quarters again, while Tom is keeping away with perfect 
ease. 

They quarter over the ground again and again, Tom always 
on the defensive. 

The Slogger pulls up at last for a moment, fairly blown. 

“Now, then, Tom,” sings out East, dancing with delight. 
Tom goes in in a twinkling, and hits two heavy body blows, and 
gets away again before the Slogger can catch his wind; which, 
when he does, he rushes with blind fury at Tom, and, being 
skillfully parried and avoided, overreaches himself and falls 
on his face, amidst terrific cheers from the Schoolhouse boys. 

“Double your two to one?” says Groove to Rattle, note- 
book in hand. 

“Stop a bit,” says that hero, looking uncomfortably at Wil- 
liams, who is puffing away on his second’s knee, winded enough, 
but little the worse in any other way. 

After another round the Slogger, too, seems to see that he 
can’t go in and win right off, and has met his match or there- 
abouts. So he, too, begins to use his head, and tries to make 
Tom lose patience, and come in before his time. And so the 


STEADY ALL 


232 

fight sways on, now one, and now the other getting a trifling 
pull. 

Toni’s face begins to look very one-sided — there are little 
queer bumps on his forehead, and his mouth is bleeding; but 
East keeps the wet sponge going so scientifically, that he comes 
up looking as fresh and bright as ever. Williams is only slightly 
marked in the face, but by the nervous movement of his elbows 
you can see that Tom’s body blows are telling. In fact, half 
the vice of the Slogger’s hitting is neutralized, for he daren’t 
lunge out freely for fear of exposing his sides. It is too interesting 
by this time for much shouting, and the whole ring is very quiet. 

“All right. Tommy,” whispers East; “hold on ’s the horse 
that’s to win. We’ve got the last. Keep your head, old boy.” 

But where is Arthur all this time? Words cannot paint the 
poor little fellow’s distress. He couldn’t muster courage to 
come up to the ring, but wandered up and down from the great 
fives’ court to the corner of the chapel rails, now trying to make 
up his mind to throw himself between them, and try to stop 
them, then thinking of running in and telling his friend Mary, 
who he knew would instantly report to the Doctor. The stories 
he had heard of men being killed in prize fights rose up horribly 
before him. 

Once only, when the shouts of “Well done. Brown!” “Huzza 
for the Schoolhousel” rose higher than ever, he ventured up to 
the ring, thinking the victory was won. Catching sight of Tom’s 
face in the state I have described, all fear of consequences vanish- 
ing out of his mind, he rushed straight off to the matron’s room, 
beseeching her to get the fight stopped, or he should die. 

But it’s time for us to get back to the close. What is this fierce 
tumult and confusion? The ring is broken, and high and angry 
words are being bandied about: “It’s all fair” — “It isn’t” — 
“No hugging”; the fight is stopped. The combatants, however, 
sit there quietly, tended by their seconds, while their adherents 
wrangle in the middle. East can’t help shouting challenges to 
two or three of the other side,^ though he never leaves Tom for a 
moment and plies the sponges as fast as ever. 


THE RING BROKEN 


m 

The fact is, that at the end of the last round, Tom, seeing a 
good opening, had closed with his opponent, and after a mo- 
ment’s struggle had thrown him heavily, by help of the fall he 
had learned from his village rival in the Vale of White Horse. 
Williams hadn’t the ghost of a chance with Tom at wrestling; 
and the conviction broke at once on the Slogger faction that if 
this were allowed their man must be licked. There was a strong 
feeling in the school against catching hold and throwing, though 
it was generally ruled all fair within certain limits; so the ring 
was broken and the fight stopped. 

The Schoolhouse are overruled — the fight is on again, but 
there is to be no throwing; and East in high wrath threatens 
to take his man away after next round (which he don’t mean 
to do, by the way), when suddenly young Brooke comes through 
the small gate at the end of the chapel. The Schoolhouse 
faction rush to him. “Oh, hurra! now we shall get fair 
play.” 

“Please, Brooke, come up, they won’t let Tom Brown throw 
him.” 

“Throw whom?” says Brooke, coming up to the ring. “Oh! 
Williams, I see. Nonsense! of course he may throw him if he 
catches him fairly above the waist.” 

Now, young Brooke, you’re in the sixth, you know, and you 
ought to stop all fights. He looks hard at both boys. “Any- 
thing wrong?” says he to East, nodding at Tom. 

“Not a bit.” 

“Not beat at all?” 

“Bless you, no! heaps of fight in him. Ain’t there, Tom?” 

Tom looks at Brooke and grins. 

“How’s he?” nodding at Williams. 

“So, so; rather done, I think, since his last fall. He won’t 
stand above two more.” 

“Time’s up!” the boys rise again and face one another. 
Brooke can’t find it in his heart to stop them just yet, so the 
round goes on, the Slogger waiting for Tom, and reserving all 
his strength to hit him out should he come in for the wrestling 


THE LAST ROUND 


234 

dodge again, for he feels that that must be stopped, or his 
sponge will soon go up in the air. 

And now another newcomer appears on the field, to wit, the 
under-porter, with his long brush and great wooden receptacle 
for dust under his arm. He has been sweeping out the schools. 

‘‘You’d better stop, gentlemen,” he says; “the Doctor knows 
that Brown’s fighting — She’ll be out in a minute.” 

“You go to Bath, Bill,” is all that that excellent servitor 
gets by his advice. And being a man of his hands and a stanch 
upholder of the Schoolhouse, he can’t help stopping to look on for 
a bit, and see Tom Brown, their pet craftsman, fight a round. 

It is grim earnest now, and no mistake. Both boys feel this, 
and summon every power of head, hand, and eye to their aid. 
A piece of luck on either side, a foot slipping, a blow getting well 
home, or another fall, may decide it. Tom works slowly round 
for an opening; he has all the legs and can choose his own time; 
the Slogger waits for the attack and hopes to finish it by some 
heavy right-handed blow. As they quarter slowly over the 
ground, the evening sun comes out from behind a cloud and 
falls full on Williams’s face. Tom darts in, the heavy right hand 
is delivered, but only grazes his head. A short rally at close 
quarters, and they close; in another moment the Slogger is 
thrown again heavily for the third time. 

“I’ll give you three to two on the little one in half crowns,” 
said Groove to Rattle. 

“No, thank’ee,” answers the other, diving his hands farther 
into his coat tails. 

Just at this stage of the proceedings the door of the turret 
which leads to the Doctor’s library suddenly opens, and he steps 
into the close, and makes straight for the ring, in which Brown 
and the Slogger are both seated on their seconds’ knees for the 
last time. 

“The Doctor! the Doctor! ” shouts some small boy who catches 
sight of him, and the ring melts away in a few seconds, the small 
boys tearing off, Tom collaring his jacket and waistcoat, and 
slipping through the little gate by the chapel, and round the 


THE DOCTOR ARRIVES 235 

corner to Harrowell’s with his backers, as lively as need be; 
Williams and his backers making off not quite so fast across 
the close; Groove, Rattle, and the other bigger fellows trying 
to combine dignity and prudence in a comical manner, and 
walking off fast enough, they hope, not to be recognized, and 
not fast enough to look like running away. 

Young Brooke alone remains on the ground by the time the 
Doctor gets there, and touches his hat, not without a slight in- 
ward qualm. 

“Hah! Brooke. I am surprised to see you here. Don’t you 
know that I expect the sixth to stop fighting?” 

Brooke felt much more uncomfortable than he had expected, 
but he was rather a favorite with the Doctor for his openness 
and plainness of speech; so blurted out, as he walked by the 
Doctor’s side, who had already turned back, — 

“Yes, sir, generally. But I thought you wished us to exercise 
a discretion in the matter too — not to interfere too soon.” 

“But they have been fighting this half hour and more,” 
said the Doctor. 

“Yes, sir; but neither was hurt. And they’re the sort of boys 
who’ll be all the better friends now, which they wouldn’t have 
been if they had been stopped any earlier — ^before it was so 
equal.” 

“Who was fighting with Brown?” said the Doctor. 

“Williams, sir, of Thompson’s. He is bigger than Brown, 
and had the best of it at first, but not when you came up, sir. 
There’s a good deal of jealousy between our house and Thomp- 
son’s, and there would have been more fights if this hadn’t been 
let go on, or if either of them had had much the worst of it.” 

“Well, but, Brooke,” said the Doctor, “doesn’t this look a 
little as if you exercised your discretion by only stopping a 
fight when the Schoolhouse boy is getting the worst of it?” 

Brooke, it must be confessed, felt rather graveled. 

“Now remember,” added the Doctor, as he stopped at the 
turret door, “this fight is not to go on — you’ll see to that. 
And I expect you to stop all fights in future at once.” 


EVENING AFTER THE FIGHT 


236 

“Very well, sir,” said young Brooke, touching his hat, and not 
sorry to see the turret door close behind the Doctor’s back. 

Meantime, Tom and the stanchest of his adherents had 
reached Harrowell’s, and Sally was bustling about to get them 
a late tea, while Stumps had been sent off to Tew the butcher, 
to get a piece of raw beef for Tom’s eye, which was to be healed 
off-hand, so that he might show well in the morning. He was 
not a bit the worse except a slight difficulty in his vision, a 
singing in his ears, and a sprained thpmb, which he kept in a 
cold-water bandage, while he drank lots of tea, and listened to 
the babel of voices talking and speculating of nothing but the 
fight, and how Williams would have given in after another fall 
(which he didn’t in the least believe), and how on earth the 
Doctor could have got to know of it, — such bad luck! He 
couldn’t help thinking to himself that he was glad he hadn’t 
won; he liked it better as it was, and felt very friendly to the 
Slogger. And then poor little Arthur crept in and sat down 
quietly near him, and kept looking at him and the raw beef 
with such plaintive looks that Tom at last burst out laughing. 

“Don’t make such eyes, young un,” said he; “there’s nothing 
the matter.” 

“Oh, but Tom, are you much hurt? I can’t bear thinking 
it was all for me.” 

“Not a bit of it, don’t flatter yourself. We were sure to have 
had it out sooner or later.” 

“Well, but you won’t go on, will you? You’ll promise me 
you won’t go on?” 

“Can’t tell about that — all depends on the houses. We’re 
in the hands of our countrymen, you know. Must fight for the 
Schoolhouse flag, if so be.” 

However, the lovers of the science were doomed to disap- 
pointment this time. Directly after locking-up, one of the night 
fags knocked at Tom’s door. 

“Brown, young Brooke wants you in the sixth-form room.” 

Up went Tom to the summons, and found the magnates sitting 
at their supper. 


THE SHAKE-HANDS 237 

“Well, Brown,” said young Brooke, nodding to him, “how 
do you feel?” 

“Oh, very well, thank you, only I’ve sprained my thumb, 
I think.” 

“Sure to do that in a fight. Well, you hadn’t the worst of it, 
I could see. Where did you learn that throw?” 

“Down in the country, when I was a boy.” 

“Hullo! why, what are you now? Well, never mind, you’re 
a plucky fellow. Sit down and have some supper.” 

Tom obeyed, by no means loath. And the fifth-form boy 
next him filled him a tumbler of bottled beer, and he ate and 
drank, listening to the pleasant talk, and wondering how soon 
he should be in the fifth, and one of that much-envied society. 

As he got up to leave, Brooke said, “You must shake hands 
to-morrow morning; I shall come and see that done after first 
lesson.” 

And so he did. And Tom and the Slogger shook hands with 
great satisfaction and mutual respect. And for the next year 
or two, whenever fights were being talked of, the small boys 
who had been present shook their heads wisely, saying, “Ah! 
but you should just have seen the fight between Slogger Wil- 
liams and Tom Brown!” 

And now, boys all, three words before we quit the subject. 
I have put in this chapter on fighting of malice prepense, ^ partly 
because I want to give you a true picture of what everyday 
school life was in my time, and not a kid-glove and go-to- 
meeting-coat picture; and partly because of the cant and twaddle 
that’s talked of boxing and fighting with fists nowadays. Even 
Thackeray has given in to it; and only a few weeks ago there was 
some rampant stuff in the Times on the subject, in an article on 
field sports. 

Boys will quarrel, and when they quarrel will sometimes 
fight. Fighting with fists is the natural and English way for 
English boys to settle their quarrels. What substitute for it is 

1 “ Malice prepense ” usually means “intentional ill will”; here the phrase 
means merely “with a purpose.” 


THE OLD BOY^S RULES 


238 

there, or ever was there, amongst any nation under the sun? 
What would you like to see take its place? 

Learn to box, then, as you learn to play cricket and football. 
Not one of you will be the worse, but very much the better, 
for learning to box well. Should you never have to use it in 
earnest, there’s no exercise in the world so good for the temper, 
and for the muscles of the back and legs. 

As to fighting, keep out of it if you can, by all means. When 
the time comes, if it ever should, that you have to say ^‘Yes” 
or “No” to a challenge to fight, say “No” if you can, — only 
take care you make it clear to yourselves why you say “No.” 
It’s a proof of the highest courage, if done from true Christian 
motives. It’s quite right and justifiable, if done from a simple 
aversion to physical pain and danger. But don’t say “No” 
because you fear a licking, and say or think it’s because you 
fear God, for that’s neither Christian nor honest. And if you 
do fight, fight it out; and don’t give in while you can stand and 
see. 


CHAPTER VI 

FEVER IN THE SCHOOL 

“This our hope for all that’s mortal, 

And we too shall burst the bond; 

Death keeps watch beside the portal, 

But ’t is life that dwells beyond.” 

John Sterling. 

Two years have passed since the events recorded in the last 
chapter, and the end of the summer half year is again drawing 
on. Martin has left and gone on a cruise in the South Pacific, 
in one of his uncle’s ships; the old magpie, as disreputable as 
ever, his last bequest to Arthur, lives in the joint study. Arthur 
is nearly sixteen and at the head of the twenty,^ having gone 
up the school at the rate of a form a half year. East and Tom 
have been much more deliberate in their progress, and are only 
a little way up the fifth form. Great strapping boys they are, 
1 A class between the fifth and sixth forms. 


THE DOCTOR 


239 

but still thorough boys, filling about the same place in the house 
that young Brooke filled when they were new boys, and much 
the same sort of fellows. Constant intercourse with Arthur has 
done much for both of them, especially for Tom; but much re- 
mains yet to be done, if they are to get all the good out of Rugby 
which is to be got there in these times. Arthur is still frail and 
delicate, with more spirit than body; but, thanks to his intimacy 
with them and Martin, has learned to swim, and run, and play 
cricket, and has never hurt himself by too much reading. 

One evening, as they were all sitting down to supper in the 
fifth-form room, some one started a report that a fever had 
broken out at one of the boarding houses; “They say,” he added, 
“that Thompson is very ill, and that Dr. Robertson has been 
sent for from Northampton.” 

“Then we shall all be sent home,” cried another. “Hurra! 
five weeks’ extra holidays, and no fifth-form examination!” 

“I hope not,” said Tom; “there’ll be no Marylebone” match, 
then, at the end of the half.” 

Some thought one thing, some another, many didn’t believe 
the report; but the next day, Tuesday, Dr. Robertson arrived 
and stayed all day, and had long conferences with the Doctor. 

On Wednesday morning, after prayers, the Doctor addressed 
the whole school. There were several cases of fever in different 
houses, he said; but Dr. Robertson, after the most careful ex- 
amination, had assured him that it was not infectious, and that 
if proper care were taken there could be no reason for stopping 
the school work at present. The examinations were just coming 
on, and it would be very unadvisable to break up now. How- 
ever, any boys who chose to do so were at liberty to write home, 
and, if their parents wished it, to leave at once. He should 
send the whole school home if the fever spread. 

The next day Arthur sickened, but there was no other case. 
Before the end of the week thirty or forty boys had gone, but 
the rest stayed on. There was a general wish to please the 
Doctor, and a feeling that it was cowardly to run away. 

On the Saturday Thompson died, in the bright afternoon, 


DEATH IN THE SCHOOL 


240 

while the cricket match was going on as usual on the big-side 
ground; the Doctor, coming from his deathbed, passed along the 
gravel walk at the side of the close, but no one knew what had 
happened till the next day. At morning lecture it began to 
be rumored, and by afternoon chapel was known generally; 
and a feeling of seriousness and awe at the actual presence of 
death among them came over the whole school. In all the long 
years of his ministry the Doctor perhaps never spoke words 
which sank deeper than some of those in that day’s sermon. 

When I came yesterday from visiting all but the very deathbed 
of him who has been taken from us, and looked around upon all 
the familiar objects and scenes within our own ground, where 
your common amusements were going on, with your common 
cheerfulness and activity, I felt there was nothing painful in 
witnessing that; it did not seem in any way shocking or out 
of tune with those feelings which the sight of a dying Christian 
must be supposed to awaken. The unsuitableness in point of 
natural feeling between scenes of mourning and scenes of liveli- 
ness did not at all present itself. But I did feel that if at that 
moment any of those faults had been brought before me which 
sometimes occur amongst us; had I heard that any of you had 
been guilty of falsehood, or of drunkenness, or of any other 
such sin; had I heard from any quarter, the language of profane- 
ness, or of unkindness, or of indecency; had I heard or seen any 
signs of that wretched folly which courts the laugh of fools 
by affecting not to dread evil and not to care for good, then the 
unsuitableness of any of these things with the scene I had just 
quitted would indeed have been most intensely painful. And 
why? Not because such things would really have been worse 
than at any other time, but because at such a moment the eyes 
are opened really to know good and evil, because we then feel 
what it is so to live as that death becomes an infinite blessing, 
and what it is so to live also that it were good for us if we had 
never been born.” 

Tom had gone into chapel in sickening anxiety about Arthur 
but he came out cheered and strengthened by those grand words, 


DEATH IN THE SCHOOL 241 

and walked up alone to their study. And when he sat down and 
looked round and saw Arthur’s straw hat and cricket jacket 
hanging on their pegs, and marked all his little neat arrange- 
ments, not one of which had been disturbed, the tears indeed 
rolled down his cheeks, but they were calm and blessed tears, 
and he repeated to himself, “Yes, Geordie’s eyes are opened — 
he knows what it is so to live as that death becomes an infinite 
blessing. But do T? O God! can I bear to lose him?” 

The week passed mournfully away. No more boys sickened, 
but Arthur was reported worse each day, and his mother arrived 
early in the week. Tom made many appeals to be allowed to 
see him, and several times tried to get up to the sick room; but 
the housekeeper was always in the way, and at last spoke to the 
Doctor, who kindly but peremptorily forbade him. 

Thompson was buried on the Tuesday; and the burial ser- 
vice, so soothing and grand always, but beyond all words solemn 
when read over a boy’s grave to his companions, brought Tom 
much comfort and many strange new thoughts and longings. 
He went back to his regular life, and played cricket and bathed 
as usual; it seemed to him that this was the right thing to do, and 
the new thoughts and longings became more brave and healthy 
for the effort. The crisis came on Saturday, the day week that 
Thompson had died; and during that long afternoon Tom sat 
in his study reading his Bible, and going every half hour to the 
housekeeper’s room, expecting each time to hear that the gentle 
and brave little spirit had gone home. But God had work 
for Arthur to do: the crisis passed — on Sunday evening he was 
declared out of danger; on Monday he sent a message to Tom 
that he was almost well, had changed his room, and was to be 
allowed to see him the next day. 

It was evening when the housekeeper summoned him to the 
sick room. Arthur was lying on the sofa by the open window, 
through which the rays of the western sun stole gently, lighting 
up his white face and golden hair. Tom remembered a German 
picture of an angel which he knew; often had he thought how 
transparent and golden and spirit-like it was; and he shuddered 


CONVALESCENCE 


242 

to think how like it Arthur looked, and felt a shock as if his blood 
had all stopped short as he realized how near the other world 
his friend must have been to look like that. Never till that mo- 
ment had he felt how his little chum had twined himself round 
his heartstrings; and as he stole gently across the room and 
knelt down, and put his arm round Arthur’s head on the pillow, 
felt ashamed and half angry at his own red and brown face, and 
the bounding sense of health and power which filled every fiber 
of his body and made every movement of mere living a joy to 
him. He needn’t have troubled himself; it was this very 
strength and power so different from his own which drew Arthur 
so to him. 

Arthur laid his thin white hand, on which the blue veins stood 
out so plainly, on Tom’s great brown fist and smiled at him; 
and then looked out of the window again, as if he couldn’t bear 
to lose a moment of the sunset, into the tops of the great feathery 
elms, round which the rooks were circling and clanging, return- 
ing in flocks from their evening’s foraging parties. The elms 
rustled, the sparrows in the ivy just outside the window chirped 
and fluttered about, quarreling, and making it up again; the 
rooks young and old talked in chorus, and the merry shouts of 
the boys and the sweet click of the cricket bats came up cheerily 
from below. 

“Dear George,” said Tom, “I am so glad to be let up to see 
you at last. I’ve tried hard to come so often, but they wouldn’t 
let me before.” 

“Oh, I know, Tom; Mary has told me every day about you, 
and how she was obliged to make the Doctor speak to you to 
keep you away. I’m very glad you didn’t get up, for you 
might have caught it, and you couldn’t stand being ill with all 
the matches going on. And you’re in the eleven, too, I hear — 
I’m so glad.” 

“Yes, ain’t it jolly?” said Tom proudly; “I’m ninth, too. I 
made forty at the last pie-match,^ and caught three fellows out. 

^ A match for a feast to the expenses of which the losing side contributed 
twice as much as the winners. 


CONVALESCENCE 243 

So I was put in above Jones and Tucker. Tucker’s so savage, 
for he was head of the twenty- two.” 

“Well, I think you ought to be higher yet,” said Arthur, 
who was as jealous for the renown of Tom in games as Tom was 
for his as a scholar. 

“Never mind, I don’t care about cricket or anything now 
you’re getting well, Geordie; and I shouldn’t have been hurt, I 
know, if they’d have let me come up— nothing hurts me. But 
you’ll get about now directly, won’t you? You won’t believe 
how clean I’ve kept the study. All your things are just as you 
left them; and I feed the old magpie just when you used, though 
I have to come in from big side for him, the old rip. He won’t 
look pleased all I can do, and sticks his head first on one side 
and then on the other, and blinks at me before he’ll begin to 
eat, till I’m half inclined to box his ears. And whenever 
East comes in, you should see him hop off to the window, 
dot and go one, though Harry wouldn’t touch a feather of him 
now.” 

Arthur laughed. “Old Gravey has a good memory; he can’t 
forget the sieges of poor Martin’s den in old times.” He 
paused a moment, and then went on. “You can’t think how 
often I’ve been thinking of old Martin since I’ve been ill; I sup- 
pose one’s mind gets restless, and likes to wander off to strange 
unknown places. I wonder what queer new pets the old boy 
has got; how he must be reveling in the thousand new birds, 
beasts, and fishes.” 

Tom felt a pang of jealousy, but kicked it out in a moment. 
“Fancy him on a South Sea island, with the Cherokees or Pata- 
gonians, or some such wild . niggers” ; Tom’s ethnology and 
geography were faulty, but sufficient for his needs; “they’ll 
make the old Madman cock medicine man and tattoo him all 
over. Perhaps he’s cutting about now all blue, and has a squaw 
and a wigwam. He’ll improve their boomerangs, and be able 
to throw them, too, without having old Thomas sent after him 
by the Doctor to take them away.” 

Arthur laughed at the remembrance of the boomerang story, 


MEMORIES 


244 

but then looked grave again, and said, “He’ll convert all the 
island, I know.” 

“Yes, if he don’t blow it up first.” 

“Do you remember, Tom, how you and East used to laugh at 
him and chaff him because he said he was sure the rooks all 
had calling-over or prayers, or something of the sort, when the 
locking-up bell rang? Well, I declare,” said Arthur, looking up 
seriously into Tom’s laughing eyes, “I do think he was right. 
Since I’ve been lying here, I’ve watched them every night; and 
do you know, they really do come and perch all of them just 
about locking-up time; and then first there’s a regular chorus of 
caws, and then they stop a bit, and one old fellow, or perhaps 
two or three in different trees, caw solos, and then off they all go 
again, fluttering about and cawing anyhow till they roost.” 

“I wonder if the old blackies do talk,” said Tom, looking up 
at them. “How they must abuse me and East, and pray for 
the Doctor for stopping the slinging.” 

“There! look, look!” cried Arthur, “don’t you see the old 
fellow without a tail coming up? Martin used to call him the 
‘clerk.’ He can’t steer himself. You never saw such fun as 
he is in a high wind, when he can’t steer himself home, and gets 
carried right past the trees, and has to bear up again and again 
before he can perch.” 

The locking-up bell began to toll, and the two boys were 
silent and listened to it. The sound soon carried Tom off to 
the river and the woods, and he began to go over in his mind the 
many occasions on which he had heard that toll coming faintly 
down the breeze, and had to pack up his rod in a hurry, and 
make a run for it, to get in before the gates were shut. He was 
roused with a start from his memories by Arthur’s voice, gentle 
and weak from his late illness. 

“Tom, will you be angry if I talk to you very seriously?” 

“No, dear old boy, not I. But ain’t you faint, Arthur, or 
ill? What can I get you? Don’t say anything to hurt your- 
self now — ^you are very weak; let me come up again.” 

“No, no, I shan’t hurt myself; I’d sooner speak to you now. 


MORE LESSONS 245 

if you don’t mind. I’ve asked Mary to tell the Doctor that you 
are with me, so you needn’t go down to calling-over; and I 
mayn’t have another chance, for I shall most likely have to go 
home for change of air to get well, and mayn’t come back this 
half.” 

“Oh, do you think you must go away before the end of the 
half? I’m so sorry. It’s more than five weeks yet to the holi- 
days, and all the fifth-form examinations and half the cricket 
matches to come yet. And what shall I do all that time alone 
in our study? Why, Arthur, it will be more than twelve weeks 
before I see you again. Oh, hang it, I can’t stand that! Besides, 
who’s to keep me up to working at the examination books? I 
shall come out bottom of the form as sure as eggs is eggs.” 

Tom was rattling on, half in earnest, half in joke, for he wanted 
to get Arthur out of his serious vein, thinking it would do him 
harm; but Arthur broke in: 

“Oh, please, Tom, stop, or you’ll drive all I had to say out 
of my head. And I’m already horribly afraid I’m going to make 
you angry.” 

“Don’t gammon,^ young un,” replied Tom (the use of the 
old name, dear to him from old recollections, made Arthur start 
and smile, and feel quite happy); “you know you ain’t afraid, 
and you’ve never made me angry since the first month we 
chummed together. Now I’m going to be quite sober for a 
quarter of an hour, which is more than I am once in a year; so 
make the most of it, heave ahead, and pitch into me right and 
left.” 

“Dear Tom, I ain’t going to pitch into you,” said Arthur 
piteously; “and it seems so cocky in me to be advising you, 
who’ve been my backbone ever since I’ve been at Rugby, and 
have made the school a paradise to me. Ah, I see I shall never 
do it, unless I go head-over-heels at once, as you said when you 
taught me to swim. Tom, I want you to give up using vulgus 
books and cribs.” 

Arthur sank back on his pillow with a sigh, as if the effort had 
1 Talk nonsense. 


rOM’5 CONFESSIONS 


^46 

been great; but the worst was now over, and he looked straight 
at Tom, who was evidently taken aback. He leaned his elbows 
on his knees, and stuck his hands into his hair, whistled a verse 
of “Billy Taylor,” and then was quite silent for another min- 
ute. Not a shade crossed his face, but he was clearly puzzled. 
At last he looked up, and caught Arthur’s anxious look, took his 
hand, and said simply, — 

“Why, young un?” 

“Because you’re the hones test boy in Rugby, and that ain’t 
honest.” 

“I don’t see that.” 

“What were you sent to Rugby for?” 

“Well, I don’t know exactly — nobody ever told me. I sup- 
pose because all boys are sent to a public school in England.” 

“But what do you think yourself? What do you want to do 
here, and to carry away?” 

Tom thought a minute. “I want to be A i at cricket and 
football, and all the other games, and to make my hands keep 
my head against any fellow, lout or gentleman. I want to get 
into the sixth before I leave and to please the Doctor; and I 
want to carry away just as much Latin and Greek as will take 
me through Oxford respectably. There now, young un, I never 
thought of it before, but that’s pretty much about my figure. 
Ain’t it all on the square? What have you got to say to 
that?” 

“Why, that you are pretty sure to do all that you want, 
then.” 

“Well, I hope so. But you’ve forgot one thing, what I want 
to leave behind me. I want to leave behind me,” said Tom, 
speaking slow and looking much moved, “the name of a fellow 
who never bullied a little boy or turned his back on a big one.” 

Arthur pressed his hand, and after a moment’s silence went 
on, “You say, Tom, you want to please the Doctor. Now, do 
you want to please him by what he thinks you do, or by what 
you really do?” 

“By what I really do, of course.” 


247 


TOM PROPOSES A COMPROMISE 

“Does he think you use cribs and vulgus books?” 

Tom felt at once that his flank was turned, but he couldn’t 
give in. “He was at Winchester himself,” said he; “he knows 
all about it.” 

“Yes, but does he think you use them? Do you think he 
approves of it?” 

“You young villain!” said Tom, shaking his fist at Arthur, 
half vexed and half pleased, “I never think about it. Hang it 
— there, perhaps he don’t. Well, I suppose he don’t.” 

Arthur saw that he had got his point; he knew his friend well, 
and was wise in silence as in speech. He only said, “I would 
sooner have the Doctor’s good opinion of me as I really am than 
any man’s in the world.” 

After another minute Tom began again: “Look here, young 
un, how on earth am I to get time to play the matches this half, 
if I give up cribs? We’re in the middle of that long crabbed 
chorus in the Agamemnon; I can only just make head or tail of 
it with the crib. Then there’s Pericles’ speech coming on in 
Thucydides, and The Birds to get up for the examination, 
besides the Tacitus.” Tom groaned at the thought of his ac- 
cumulated labors. “I say, young un, there’s only five weeks 
or so left to holidays; mayn’t I go on as usual for this half? 
I’ll tell the Doctor about it some day, or you may.” 

Arthur looked out of the window; the twilight had come on, 
and all was silent. He repeated in a low voice, “In this thing 
the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth into 
the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my 
hand, and I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, when I 
bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy 
servant in this thing.” 

Not a word more was said on the subject, and the boys were 
again silent — one of those blessed, short silences in which the 
resolves which color a life are so often taken. 

Tom was the first to break it. “You’ve been very ill indeed, 
haven’t you, Geordie?” said he, with a mixture of awe and 
curiosity, feeling as if his friend had been in some strange place 


248 TOM OUT-GENERALED 

or scene, of which he could form no idea, and full of the mem- 
ory of his own thoughts during the last week. 

“Yes, very. I’m sure the Doctor thought I was going to die. 
He gave me the Sacrament last Sunday, and you can’t think 
what he is when one is ill. He said such brave, and tender, and 
gentle things to me, I felt quite light and strong after it, and 
never had any more fear. My mother brought our old medical 
man, who attended me when I was a poor sickly child; he said 
my constitution was quite changed, and that I’m fit for anything 
now. If it hadn’t, I couldn’t have stood three days of this ill- 
ness. That’s all thanks to you and the games you’ve made me 
fond of.” 

“More thanks to old Martin,” said Tom; “he’s been your 
real friend.” 

“Nonsense, Tom; he never could have done for me what you 
have.” 

“Well, I don’t know; I did little enough. Did they tell you 
— you won’t mind hearing it now, I know — that poor Thomp- 
son died last week? The other three boys are getting quite 
round, like you.” 

“Oh, yes, I heard of it.” 

Then Tom, who was quite full of it, told Arthur of the burial 
service in the chapel, and how it had impressed him and, he 
believed, all the other boys. “And though the Doctor never 
said a word about it,” said he, “and it was a half holiday and 
match day, there wasn’t a game played in the close all the after- 
noon, and the boys all went about as if it were Sunday.” 

“I’m very glad of it,” said Arthur. “But, Tom, I’ve had 
such strange thoughts about death lately. I’ve never told a 
soul of them, not even my mother. Sometimes I think they’re 
wrong, but, do you know, I don’t think in my heart I could be 
sorry at the death of any of my friends.” 

Tom was taken quite aback. “What in the world is the 
young un after now?” thought he. “ I’ve swallowed a good many 
of his crotchets, but this altogether beats me. He can’t be quite 
right in his head.” He didn’t want to say a word, and shifted 


ARTHUR^S FEVER 249 

about uneasily in the dark; however, Arthur seemed to be wait- 
ing for an answer, so at last he said, “I don’t quite think I see 
what you mean, Geordie. One’s told so often to think about 
death, that I’ve tried it on sometimes, especially this last week. 
But we won’t talk of it now. I’d better go — you’re getting 
tired, and I shall do you harm.” 

“No, no, indeed I ain’t, Tom; you must stop till nine, there’s 
only twenty minutes. I’ve settled you shall stop till nine. And 
oh! do let me talk to you — I must talk to you. I see it’s just as 
as I feared. You think I’m half mad — don’t you now?” 

“Well, I did think it odd what you said, Geordie, as you ask 
me.” 

Arthur paused a moment, and then said quickly, “I’ll tell 
you how it all happened. At first, when I was sent to the sick 
room and found I had really got the fever, I was terribly 
frightened. I thought I should die, and I could not face it for 
a moment. I don’t think it was sheer cowardice at first, but I 
thought how hard it was to be taken away from my mother and 
sisters, and you all, just as I was beginning to see my way to 
many things and to feel that I might be a man and do a man’s 
work. To die without having fought, and worked, and given 
one’s life away, was too hard to bear. I got terribly impa- 
tient, and accused God of injustice, and strove to justify my- 
self; and the harder I strove, the deeper I sank. Then the 
image of my dear father often came across me, but I turned 
from it. Wlienever it came, a heavy numbing throb seemed to 
take hold of my heart, and say, ‘Dead — dead — dead.’ And I 
cried out, ‘The living, the living shall praise Thee, O God; the 
dead cannot praise Thee. There is no work in the grave; in 
the night no man can work. But I can work. I can do great 
things. I will do great things. Why wilt Thou slay me?’ 
And so I struggled and plunged, deeper and deeper, and went 
down into a living black tomb. I was alone there, with no 
power to stir or think; alone with myself; beyond the reach of 
all human fellowship; beyond Christ’s reach, I thought, in my 
nightmare. You, who are brave and bright and strong, can 


250 ARTHUR'S FEVER 

have no idea of that agony. Pray to God you never may. Pray 
as for your life.” 

Arthur stopped — from exhaustion, Tom thought; but what 
between his fear lest Arthur should hurt himself, his awe, and 
longing for him to go on, he couldn’t ask or stir to help him. 

Presently he went on, but quite calm and slow. “I don’t 
know how long I was in that state. For more than a day, I 
know; for I was quite conscious, and lived my outer life all the 
time, and took my medicines, and spoke to my mother, and 
heard what they said. But I didn’t take much note of time; I 
thought time was over for me, and that that tomb was what 
was beyond. Well, on last Sunday morning, as I seemed to lie 
in that tomb, alone, as I thought, forever and ever, the black- 
dead wall was cleft in two, and I was caught up and borne 
through into the light by some great power, some living mighty 
spirit. Tom, do you remember the living creatures and the 
wheels in Ezekiel? It was just like that: ‘when they went I 
heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as 
the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an 
host; when they stood they let down their wings’ — ‘and they 
went every one straight forward; whither the spirit was to go 
they went, and they turned not when they went.’ And we 
rushed through the bright air, which was full of myriads of living 
creatures, and paused on the brink of a great river. And the 
power held me up, and I knew that that great river was the 
grave, and death dwelt there; but not the death I had met in the 
black tomb — that I felt was gone forever. For on the other 
bank of the great river I saw men and women and children 
rising up pure and bright, and the tears were wiped from their 
eyes, and they put on glory and strength, and all weariness and 
pain fell away. And beyond were a multitude which no man 
could number, and they worked at some great work; and they 
who rose from the river went on and joined in the work. They 
all worked, and each worked in a different way, but all at the 
same work. And I saw there my father, and the men in the old 
town whom I knew when I was a child; many a hard stern man, 


ARTHUR’S FEVER 251 

who never came to church, and whom they called atheist and 
infidel. There they were, side by side with my father, whom I 
had seen toil and die for them, and women and little children, 
and the seal was on the foreheads of all. And I longed to see 
what the work was, and could not; so I tried to plunge in the 
river, for I thought I would join them, but I could not. Then 
I looked about to see how they got into the river. And this I 
could not see, but I saw myriads on this side, and they, too, 
worked, and I knew that it was the same work; and the same 
seal was on their foreheads. And though I saw that there was 
toil and anguish in the work of these, and that most that were 
working were blind and feeble, yet I longed no more to plunge 
into the river, but more and more to know what the work was. 
And as I looked I saw my mother and my sisters, and I saw the 
Doctor, and you, Tom, and hundreds more whom I knew; and 
at last I saw myself, too, and I was toiling and doing ever so 
little a piece of the great work. Then it all melted away, and 
the power left me, and as it left me I thought I heard a voice 
say, ‘The vision is for an appointed time; though it tarry, wait 
for it, for in the end it shall speak and not lie, it shall surely 
come, it shall not tarry.’ It was early morning I know then, it 
was so quiet and cool, and my mother was fast asleep in the 
chair by my bedside; but it wasn’t only a dream of mine. I 
know it wasn’t a dream. Then I fell into a deep sleep, and 
only woke after afternoon chapel; and the Doctor came and 
gave me the Sacrament, as I told you. I told him and my 
mother I should get well — I knew I should; but I couldn’t tell 
them why. Tom,” said Arthur, gently, after another minute, 
“do you see why I could not grieve now to see my dearest 
friend die? It can’t be — it isn’t all fever or illness. God would 
never have let me see it so clear if it wasn’t true. I don’t under- 
stand it all yet — it will take me my life and longer to do that — 
to find out what the work is.” 

When Arthur stopped there was a long pause. Tom could not 
speak, he was almost afraid to breathe, lest he should break the 
train of Arthur’s thoughts. He longed to hear more, and to 


ARTHUR^S MOTHER 


252 

ask questions. In another minute nine o’clock struck, and a 
gentle tap at the door called them both back into the world 
again. They did not answer, however, for a moment, and so 
the door opened and a lady came in carrying a candle. 

She went straight to the sofa and took hold of Arthur’s 
hand, and then stooped down and kissed him. 

“ My dearest boy, you feel a little feverish again. Why didn’t 
you have lights? You’ve talked too much, and excited your- 
self in the dark.” 

“Oh, no, mother, you can’t think how well I feel. I shall 
start with you to-morrow for Devonshire. But mother, here’s 
my friend, here’s Tom Brown — ^you know him?” 

“Yes, indeed, I’ve known him for years,” she said, and held 
out her hand to Tom, who was now standing up behind the 
sofa. This was Arthur’s mother. Tall and slight and fair, 
with masses of golden hair drawn back from the broad white 
forehead, and the calm blue eye meeting his so deep and open — 
the eye that he knew so well, for it was his friend’s over again, 
and the lovely tender mouth that trembled while he looked. 
She stood there a woman of thirty-eight, old enough to be his 
mother, and one whose face showed the lines which must be 
written on the faces of good men’s wives and widows — ^but he 
thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. He couldn’t 
help wondering if Arthur’s sisters were like her. 

Tom held her hand, and looked on straight in her face; he 
could neither let it go nor speak. 

“Now, Tom,” said Arthur, laughing, “where are your man- 
ners? you’ll stare my mother out of countenance.” Tom 
dropped the little hand with a sigh. “There, sit down, both of 
you. Here, dearest mother, there’s room here,” — ^and he made 
a place on the sofa for her. “Tom, you needn’t go; I’m sure you 
won’t be called up at first lesson.” Tom felt that he would risk 
being floored at every lesson for the rest of his natural school- 
life sooner than go, so sat down. “And now,” said Arthur, “ I 
have realized one of the dearest wishes of my life — to see you 
two together.” 


ARTHUR^S MOTHER 253 

And then he led away the talk to their home in Devonshire, 
and the red bright earth, and the deep green coombs,^ and the 
peat streams like cairngorm ^ pebbles, and the wild moor with 
its high cloudy Tors ^ for a giant background to the picture — 
till Tom got jealous, and stood up for the clear chalk streams, 
and the emerald water meadows and great elms and willows of 
the dear old royal county,^ as he gloried to call it. And the 
mother sat on quiet and loving, rejoicing in their life. The 
quarter to ten struck, and the bell rang for bed, before they had 
well begun their talk, as it seemed. 

Then Tom rose with a sigh to go. 

“Shall I see you in the morning, Geordie?^’ said he, as he 
shook his friend’s hand. “Never mind, though; you’ll be back 
next half, and I shan’t forget the house of Rimmon.” 

Arthur’s mother got up and walked with him to the door, and 
there gave him her hand again, and again his eyes met that deep 
loving look, which was like a spell upon him. Her voice 
trembled slightly as she said, “Good night — ^you are one who 
knows what our Father has promised to the friend of the widow 
and the fatherless. May He deal with you as you have dealt 
with me and mine!” 

Tom was quite upset; he mumbled something about owing 
everything good in him to Geordie — looked in her face again, 
pressed her hand to his lips, and rushed downstairs to his study, 
where he sat till old Thomas came kicking at the door, to tell 
him his allowance would be stopped if he didn’t go off to bed. 
(It would have been stopped anyhow but that he was a great 
favorite with the old gentleman, who loved to come out in 
the afternoons into the close to Tom’s wicket, and bowl slow 
twisters to him, and talk of the glories of bygone Surrey heroes, 
with whom he had played in former generations.) So Tom 
roused himself, and took up his candle to go to bed; and then for 
the first time was aware of a beautiful new fishing rod, with old 
Eton’s mark on it, and a splendidly bound Bible, which lay on 

^ Narrow valleys. 2 a kind of quartz. 

3 Steep hills or cliffs. ■* Berkshire. 


254 tom springs his MINE 

his table, on the title-page of which was written — “ Tom Brown, 
from his affectionate and grateful friends, Frances Jane Arthur, 
George Arthur.” 

I leave you all to guess how he slept, and what he dreamed of. 


CHAPTER VII 

HARRY east’s DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES 

“The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 

In whatso we share with another’s need — 

Not what we give, but what we share. 

For the gift without the giver is bare: 

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, 

Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me.” 

Lowell, The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

The next morning, after breakfast, Tom, East, and Gower 
met as usual to learn their second lesson together. Tom had 
been considering how to break his proposal of giving up the 
crib to the others, and having found no better way (as indeed 
none better can be found by man or boy), told them simply what 
had happened; how he had been to see Arthur, who had talked 
to him upon the subject, and what he had said, and for his part 
he had made up his mind, and wasn’t going to use cribs any 
more, and not being quite sure of his ground, took the high 
and pathetic tone, and was proceeding to say, ‘‘how that having 
learned his lessons with them for so many years, it would grieve 
him much to put an end to the arrangement, and he hoped at 
any rate that if they wouldn’t go on with him, they should still 
be just as good friends, and respect one another’s motives — 
but”— 

Here the other boys, who had been listening with open eyes 
and ears, burst in. 

“Stuff and nonsense!” cried Gower. “Here, East, get down 
the crib and find the place.” 

“Oh, Tommy, Tommy!” said East, proceeding to do as he 
was bidden, “that it should ever have come to this. I knew 


RESULTS OF THE EXPLOSION 255 

Arthur’d be the ruin of you some day, and you of me. And 
the time’s come” — and he made a doleful face. 

“I don’t know about ruin,” answered Tom; “I know that you 
and I would have had the sack long ago if it hadn’t been for him. 
And you know it as well as I.” 

“Well, we were in a baddish way before he came, I own; but 
this new crotchet of his is past a joke.” 

“Let’s give it a trial, Harry; come — you know how often he 
has been right and we wrong.” 

“Now, don’t you two be jawing away about young Square- 
toes,” struck in Gower. “He’s no end of a sucking wiseacre, I 
dare say, but we’ve no time to lose, and I’ve got the fives’ court 
at half past nine.” 

“I say, Gower,” said Tom appealingly, “be a good fellow, and 
let’s try if we can’t get on without the crib.” 

“What! in this chorus? Why, we shan’t get through ten 
lines.” 

“I say, Tom,” cried East, having hit on a new idea, “don’t 
you remember, when we were in the upper fourth, and old 
Momus caught me construing off the leaf of a crib which I’d 
torn out and put in my book, and which would float out on to 
the floor, he sent me up to be flogged for it?” 

“Yes, I remember it very well.” 

“Well, the Doctor, after he’d flogged me, told me himself 
that he didn’t flog me for using a translation, but for taking it 
into lesson, and using it there when I hadn’t learned a word be- 
fore I came in. He said there was no harm in using a transla- 
tion to get a clue to hard passages, if you tried all you could 
first to make them out without.” 

“Did he, though?” said Tom; “then Arthur must be wrong.” 

“Of course he is,” said Gower, “the little prig. We’ll only 
use the crib when we can’t construe without it. Go ahead. 
East.” 

And on this agreement they started; Tom, satisfied with hav- 
ing made his confession, and not sorry to have a locus puenitenticCy^ 
1 Ground for repentance. 


RESULTS OF THE EXPLOSION 


256 

and not to be deprived altogether of the use of his old and faith- 
ful friend. 

The boys went on as usual, each taking a sentence in turn, 
and the crib being handed to the one whose turn it was to con- 
strue. Of course Tom couldn’t object to this, as, was it not 
simply lying there to be appealed to in case the sentence should 
prove too hard altogether for the cons truer? But it must be 
owned that Gower and East did not make very tremendous ex- 
ertions to conquer their sentences before having recourse to its 
help. Tom, however, with the most heroic virtue and gallantry 
rushed into his sentence, searching in a high-minded manner for 
nominative and verb, and turning over his dictionary frantic- 
ally for the first hard word that stopped him. But in the mean- 
time, Gower, who was bent on getting to fives, would peep 
quietly into the crib and then suggest, “Don’t you think this is 
the meaning?” “I think you must take it this way. Brown”; and 
as Tom didn’t see his way to not profiting by these suggestions, 
the lesson went on about as quickly as usual, and Gower was able 
to start for the fives’ court within five minutes of the half hour. 

When Tom and East were left face to face, they looked at one 
another for a minute, Tom puzzled, and East chock-full of fun, 
and then burst into a roar of laughter. 

“Well, Tom,” said East, recovering himself, “I don’t see 
any objection to the new way. It’s about as good as the old 
one, I think; besides the advantage it gives one of feeling vir- 
tuous, and looking down on one’s neighbors.” 

Tom shoved his hand into his back hair. “I ain’t so sure,” 
said he; “you two fellows carried me off my legs; I don’t think 
we really tried one sentence fairly. Are you sure you remember 
what the Doctor said to you?” 

“Yes. And I’ll swear I couldn’t make out one of my sen- 
tences to-day. No, nor ever could. I really don’t remember,” 
said East, speaking slowly and impressively, “to have come 
across one Latin or Greek sentence this half that I could go and 
construe by the light of nature; whereby I am sure Providence 
intended cribs to be used.” 


THE ENEMY^S DEFENSE 257 

‘‘The thing to find out,” said Tom meditatively, “is how long 
one ought to grind at a sentence without looking at the crib. 
Now I think if one fairly looks out all the words one don’t 
know, and then can’t hit hard, that’s enough.” 

“To be sure. Tommy,” said East demurely, but with a 
merry twinkle in his eye. “Your new doctrine, too, old fellow,” 
added he, “when one comes to think of it, is a-cutting at the 
root of all school morality. You’ll take away mutual help, 
brotherly love, or, in the vulgar tongue, giving construes, which 
I hold to be one of our highest virtues; for how can you distin- 
guish between getting a construe from another boy and using a 
crib? Hang it, Tom, if you’re going to deprive all our school- 
fellows of the chance of exercising Christian benevolence and 
being good Samaritans, I shall cut the concern.” 

“I wish you wouldn’t joke about it, Harry; it’s hard enough 
to see one’s way, a precious sight harder than I thought last 
night. But I suppose there’s a use and an abuse of both, and 
one’ll get straight enough somehow. But you can’t make out 
anyhow that one has a right to use old vulgus books and copy- 
books.” 

“Hullo, more heresy! how fast a fellow goes down hill when 
he once gets his head before his legs. Listen to me, Tom. 
Not use old vulgus books? — why, you Goth! ain’t we to take 
the benefit of the wisdom, and admire and use the work of past 
generations? Not use old copybooks! Why, you might as well 
say we ought to pull down Westminster Abbey, and put up a 
go-to-meeting shop with churchwarden windows; or never read 
Shakespeare, but only Sheridan Knowles. Think of all the work 
and labor that our predecessors have bestowed on these very 
books, and are we to make their work of no value?” 

“I say, Harry, please don’t chaff; I’m really serious.” 

“And then, is it not our duty to consult the pleasure of others 
rather than our own, and above all that of our masters? Fancy 
then the difference to them in looking over a vulgus which has 
been carefully touched and retouched by themselves and others, 
and which must bring them a sort of dreamy pleasure, as if 


THE ENEMY^S DEFENSE 


258 

they’d met the thought or expression of it somewhere or an- 
other — before they were born, perhaps; and that of cutting up, 
and making picture frames round all your and my false quan- 
tities and other monstrosities. Why, Tom, you wouldn’t be so 
cruel as never to let old Momus hum over the ‘ O genus human- 
urn,’ again, and then look up doubtingly through his spectacles, 
and end by smiling and giving three extra marks for it; just for 
old sake’s sake, I suppose.” 

“Well,” said Tom, getting up in something as like a huff as he 
was capable of, “it’s deuced hard that when a fellow’s really 
trying to do what he ought, his best friends’ll do nothing but 
chaff him and try to put him down.” And he stuck his books 
under his arm and his hat on his head, preparatory to rushing 
out into the quadrangle, to testify with his own soul of the 
faithlessness of friendships. 

“Now don’t be an ass, Tom,” said East, catching hold of 
him, “you know me well enough by this time; my bark’s worse 
than my bite. You can’t expect to ride your new crotchet 
without anybody’s trying to stick a nettle under his tail and 
make him kick you off; especially as we shall all have to go on 
foot still. But now sit down and let’s go over it again. I’ll be 
as serious as a judge.” 

Then Tom sat himself down on the table, and waxed eloquent 
about all the righteousness and advantages of the new plan, as 
was his wont whenever he took up anything; going into it as if 
his life depended upon it, and sparing no abuse which he could 
think of of the opposite method, which he denounced as un- 
gentlemanly, cowardly, mean, lying, and no one knows what be- 
sides. “Very cool of Tom,” as East thought, but didn’t say, 
“seeing as how he only came out of Egypt ^ himself last night 
at bedtime.” 

“Well, Tom,” said he at last, “you see, when you and I came 
to school there were none of these ^ sort of notions. You may 
be right — I dare say you are. Only what one has always felt 
about the masters is, that it’s a fair trial of skill and last between 
1 The land of bondage for the Israelites. 2 This. 


THE ENEMY^S DEFENSE 


259 

US and them — like a match at football, or a battle. We’re 
natural enemies in school, that’s the fact. We’ve got to learn 
so much Latin and Greek and do so many verses, and they’ve 
got to see that we do it. If we can slip the collar and do so much 
less without getting caught, that’s one to us. If they can get 
more out of us, or catch us shirking, that’s one to them. All’s 
fair in war but lying. If I run my luck against theirs, and go 
into school without looking at my lessons, and don’t get called 
up, why am I a snob or a sneak? I don’t tell the master I’ve 
learned it. He’s got to find out whether I have or not; what’s 
he paid for? If he calls me up, and I get floored, he makes me 
write it out in Greek and English. Very good; he’s caught me, 
and I don’t grumble. I grant you, if I go and snivel to him, and 
tell him I’ve really tried to learn it, but found it so hard without 
a translation, or say I’ve had a toothache or any humbug of that 
kind, I’m a snob. That’s my school morality; it’s served me 
and you, too, Tom, for the matter of that, these five years. 
And it’s all clear and fair, no mistake about it. We under- 
stand it, and they understand it, and I don’t know what we’re 
to come to with any other.” 

Tom looked at him pleased, and a little puzzled. He had 
never heard East speak his mind seriously before, and couldn’t 
help feeling how completely he had hit his own theory and 
practice up to that time. 

‘‘Thank you, old fellow,” said he. “You’re a good old brick 
to be serious, and not put out with me. I said more than I 
meant, I dare say, only you see I know I’m right; whatever you 
and Gower and the rest do, I shall hold on — I must. And as 
it’s all new and an uphill game, you see, one must hit hard and 
hold on tight at first.” 

“Very good,” said East; “hold on and hit away, only don’t 
hit under the line.” 

“But I must bring you over, Harry, or I shan’t be comfort- 
able. Now, I allow all you’ve said. We’ve always been honor- 
able enemies with the masters. We found a state of war when 
we came, and went into it, of course. Only don’t you think 


26 o 


ARTHUR GOES HOME 


things are altered a good deal? I don’t feel as I used to the 
masters. They seem to me to treat one quite differently.” 

“Yes, perhaps they do,” said East; “there’s a new set, mostly, 
who don’t feel sure of themselves yet. They don’t want to 
fight till they know the ground.” 

“I don’t think it’s only that,” said Tom. “And then the 
Doctor, he does treat one so openly, and like a gentleman, and 
as if one was working with him.” 

“Well, so he does,” said East; “he’s a splendid fellow, and 
when I get into the sixth I shall act accordingly. Only you 
know he has nothing to do with our lessons now, except ex- 
amining us. I say, though,” looking at his watch, “it’s just 
the quarter. Come along.” 

As they walked out they got a message to say “that Arthur' 
was just starting and would like to say good-by”; so they went 
down to the private entrance of the Schoolhouse and found an 
open carriage, with Arthur propped up with pillows in it, look- 
ing already better, Tom thought. 

They jumped up on to the steps to shake hands with him, and 
Tom mumbled thanks for the presents he had found in his study 
and looked round anxiously for Arthur’s mother. 

East, who had fallen back into his usual humor, looked 
quaintly at Arthur, and said, — 

“So you’ve been at it again, through that hot-headed convert 
of yours there. He’s been making our lives a burden to us all 
the morning about using cribs. I shall get floored to a cer- 
tainty at second lesson, if I’m called up.” 

Arthur blushed and looked down. Tom struck in, — 

“Oh, it’s all right. He’s converted already; he always comes 
through the mud after us, grumbling and sputtering.” 

The clock struck, and they had to go off to school, wishing 
Arthur a pleasant holiday; Tom lingering behind a moment to 
send his thanks and love to Arthur’s mother. 

Tom renewed the discussion after second lesson, and suc- 
ceeded so far as to get East to promise to give the new plan a 
fair trial. 


THE SIEGE REOPENS 261 

Encouraged by his success, in the evening, when they were 
sitting alone in the large study, where East lived now almost, 
^^vice Arthur on leave,” after examining the new fishing rod, 
which both pronounced to be the genuine article (“play enough 
to throw a midge tied on a single hair against the wind, and 
strength enough to hold a grampus”), they naturally began talk- 
ing about Arthur. Tom, who was still bubbling over with last 
night’s scene and all the thoughts of the last week, and wanting 
to clinch and fix the whole in his own mind, which he could 
never do without first going through the process of belaboring 
somebody else with it all, suddenly rushed into the subject of 
Arthur’s illness, and what he had said about death. 

East had given him the desired opening, after a serio-comic 
grumble, “ that life wasn’t worth having now they were tied to 
a young beggar who was always ‘raising his standard’; and that 
he. East, was like a prophet’s donkey, who was obliged to 
struggle on after the donkey man who went after the prophet; 
that he had none of the pleasure of starting the new crotchets, 
and didn’t half understand them, but had to take the kicks and 
carry the luggage as if he had all the fun” — ^he threw his legs up 
on to the sofa, and put his hands behind his head, and said, — 

“Well, after all, he’s the most wonderful little fellow I ever 
came across. There ain’t such a meek, humble boy in the 
school. Hanged if I don’t think now really, Tom, that he be- 
lieves himself a much worse fellow than you or I, and that he 
don’t think he has more influence in the house than Dot Bowles, 
who came last quarter, and ain’t ten yet. But he turns you and 
me round his little finger, old boy — there’s no mistake about 
that.” And East nodded at Tom sagaciously. 

“Now or never!” thought Tom; so shutting his eyes and 
hardening his heart, he went straight at it, repeating all that 
Arthur had said, as near as he could remember it, in the very 
words, and all he had himself thought. The life seemed to ooze 
out of it as he went on, and several times he felt inclined to stop, 
give it all up, and change the subject. But somehow he was 
'x^rne on, he had a necessity upon him to speak it all out aTid 


FRIENDSHIP TESTED 


262 

did so. At the end he looked at East with some anxiety, and 
was delighted to see that that young gentleman was thoughtful 
and attentive. The fact is, that in the stage of his inner life at 
which Tom had lately arrived, his intimacy with and friendship 
for East could not have lasted if he had not made him aware of, 
and a sharer in, the thoughts that were beginning to exercise 
him. Nor indeed could the friendship have lasted if East had 
shown no sympathy with these thoughts; so that it was a great 
relief to have unbosomed himself, and to have found that his 
friend could listen. 

Tom had always had a sort of instinct that East’s levity was 
only skin-deep; and this instinct was a true one. East had no 
want of reverence for anything he felt to be real; but his was one 
of those natures that burst into what is generally called reck- 
lessness and impiety the moment they feel that anything is 
being poured upon them for their good, which does not come 
home to their inborn sense of right, or which appeals to any- 
thing like self-interest in them. Daring and honest by nature, 
and outspoken to an extent which alarmed all respectabilities, 
with a constant fund of animal health and spirits which he did 
not feel bound to curb in any way, he had gained for himself, 
with the steady part of the school (including as well those who 
wished to appear steady as those who really were so), the char- 
acter of a boy whom it would be dangerous to be intimate with; 
while his own hatred of everything cruel or underhand or false, 
and his hearty respect for what he could see to be good and true, 
kept off the rest. 

Tom, besides being very like East in many points of character, 
had largely developed in his composition the capacity for taking 
the weakest side. This is not putting it strongly enough: it was 
a necessity with him; he couldn’t help it any more than he could 
eating or drinking. He could never play on the strongest side 
with any heart at football or cricket, and was sure to make 
friends with any boy who was unpopular or down on his luck. 

Now though East was not what is generally called unpopular, 
Tom felt more and more every day, as their characters devel- 


FRIENDSHIP TESTED 263 

oped, that he stood alone, and did not make friends among 
their contemporaries, and therefore sought him out. Tom was 
himself much more popular, for his power of detecting hum- 
bug was much less acute, and his instincts were much more so- 
ciable. He was at this period of his life, too, largely given to 
taking people for what they gave themselves out to be; but his 
singleness of heart, fearlessness, and honesty were just what 
East appreciated, and thus the two had been drawn into great 
intimacy. 

This intimacy had not been interrupted by Tom’s guardian- 
ship of Arthur. 

East had often, as has been said, joined them in reading the 
Bible; but their discussions had almost always turned upon the 
characters of the men and women of whom they read, and not 
become personal to themselves. In fact, the two had shrunk 
from personal religious discussion, not knowing how it might 
end; and fearful of risking a friendship very dear to both, and 
which they felt somehow, without quite knowing why, would 
never be the same, but either tenfold stronger or sapped at its 
foundation, after such a communing together. 

What a bother all this explaining is! I wish we could get 
on without it. But we can’t. However, you’ll all find, if you 
haven’t found it out already, that a time comes in every human 
friendship, when you must go down into the depths of yourself, 
and lay bare what is there to your friend, and wait in fear for 
his answer. A few moments may do it; and it may be (most 
likely will be, as you are English boys) that you never do it but 
once. But done it must be, if the friendship is to be worth the 
name. You must find what is there, at the very root and bottom 
of one another’s hearts; and if you are at one there, nothing on 
earth can, or at least ought to sunder you. 

East had remained lying down until Tom finished speaking, 
as if fearing to interrupt him; he now sat up at the table and 
leaned his head on one hand, taking up a pencil with the other 
and working little holes with it in the tablecover. After a bit 
he looked up, stopped the pencil, and said, “Thank you very 


EAST’S CONFESSIONS 


264 

much, old fellow; there’s no other boy in the house would have 
done it for me but you or Arthur. I can see well enough,” he 
went on after a pause, “all the best big fellows look on me 
with suspicion; they think I’m a devil-may-care, reckless young 
scamp. So I am — eleven hours out of twelve — but not the 
twelfth. Then all of our contemporaries worth knowing follow 
suit, of course; we’re very good friends at games and all that, 
but not a soul of them but you and Arthur ever tried to break 
through the crust, and see whether there was anything at the 
bottom of me; and then the bad ones I won’t stand, and they 
know that.” 

“Don’t you think that’s half fancy, Harry?” 

“Not a bit of it,” said East bitterly, pegging away with 
his pencil. “I see it all plain enough. Bless you, you 
think everybody’s as straightforward and kind-hearted as you 
are.” 

“Well, but what’s the reason of it? There must be a reason. 
You can play all the games as well as any one, and sing the best 
song, and are the best company in the house. You fancy 
you’re not liked, Harry. It’s all fancy.” 

“ I only wish it was, Tom. I know I could be popular enough 
with all the bad ones, but that I won’t have, and the good ones 
won’t have me.” 

“Why not?” persisted Tom; “you don’t drink or swear, or get 
out at night; you really never bully or cheat at lessons. If you 
only showed you liked it, you’d have all the best fellows in the 
house running after you.” 

“Not I,” said East. Then with an effort he went on, “I’ll 
tell you what it is. I never stop the Sacrament. I can see, 
from the Doctor downwards, how that tells against me.” 

“Yes, I’ve seen that*” said Tom, “and I’ve been very sorry 
for it, and Arthur and I have talked about it. I’ve often thought 
of speaking to you, but it’s so hard to begin on such subjects. 
I’m very glad you’ve opened it. Now, why don’t you?” 

“I’ve never been confirmed,” said East. 

“Not been confirmed!” said Tom in astonishment. “I 


EASrS CONFESSIONS 


265 

never thought of that. Why weren’t you confirmed with the 
rest of us nearly three years ago? I always thought you’d been 
confirmed at home.” 

“No,” answered East sorrowfully, “you see this was how it 
happened. Last Confirmation was soon after Arthur came, and 
you were so taken up with him, I hardly saw either of you. 
Well, when the Doctor sent round for us about it, I was living 
mostly with Green’s set — you know the sort. They all went in — 
I dare say it was all right, and they got good by it; I don’t want 
to judge them. Only all I could see of their reasons drove me 
just the other way. ’Twas ‘ because the Doctor liked it’ ; ' no boy 
got on who didn’t stay the Sacrament’; it was ‘ the correct thing,’ 
in fact, like having a good hat to wear on Sundays. I couldn’t 
stand it. I didn’t feel that I wanted to lead a different life, I was 
very well content as I was, and I wasn’t going to sham religious 
to curry favor with the Doctor or any one else.” 

East stopped speaking, and pegged away more diligently than 
ever with his pencil. Tom was ready to cry. He felt half 
sorry that he had been confirmed himself. He seemed to have 
deserted his earliest friend, to have left him by himself at his 
worst need for those long years. He got up and went and sat 
by East and put his arm over his shoulder. 

“Dear old boy,” he said, “how careless and selfish I’ve been. 
But why didn’t you come and talk to Arthur and me? ” 

“I wish to heaven I had,” said East; “but I was a fool. It’s 
too late talking of it now.” 

“Why too late? You want to be confirmed now, don’t 
you? ” 

“I think so,” said East. “I’ve thought about it a good deal; 
only often I fancy I must be changing, because I see it’s to do 
me good here, just what stopped me last time. And then I go 
back again.” 

“I’ll tell you now how ’t was with me,” said Tom warmly. 
“If it hadn’t been for Arthur, I should have done just as you 
did. I hope I should. I honor you for it. But then he made 
it out just as if it was taking the weak side before all the world — 


EAST’S CONFESSIONS 


266 

going in once for all against everything that’s strong and rich 
and proud and respectable, a little band of brothers against the 
whole world. And the Doctor seemed to say so, too, only he 
said a great deal more.” 

“Ah!” groaned East, “but there again, that’s just another 
of my difficulties whenever I think about the matter. I don’t 
want to be one of your saints, one of your elect, whatever the 
right phrase is. My sympathies are all the other way^ — with the 
many, the poor devils who run about the streets and don’t go to 
church. Don’t stare, Tom; mind, I’m telling you all that’s in 
my heart — as far as I know it — but it’s all a muddle. You 
must be gentle with me if you want to land me. Now I’ve seen 
a deal of this sort of religion; I was bred up in it, and I can’t 
stand it. If nineteen twentieths of the world are to be left to 
uncovenanted mercies and that sort of thing, which means in 
plain English to go to hell, and the other twentieth are to rejoice 
at it all, why” — 

“Oh! but, Harry, they ain’t, they don’t,” broke in Tom, 
really shocked. “Oh, how I wish Arthur hadn’t gone! I’m 
such a fool about these things. But it’s all you want, too. East; 
it is indeed. It cuts both ways somehow, being confirmed and 
taking the Sacrament. It makes you feel on the side of all the 
good and all the bad, too, of everybody in the world. Only 
there’s some great dark strong power, which is crushing you and 
everybody else. That’s what Christ conquered, and we’ve got 
to fight. What a fool I am! I can’t explain. If Arthur were 
only here!” 

“I begin to get a glimmering of what you mean,” said East. 

“I say now,” said Tom eagerly, “do you remember how we 
both hated Flashman?” 

“Of course I do,” said East; “I hate him still. What then?” 

“Well, when I came to take the Sacrament I had a great 
struggle about that. I tried to put him out of my head; and 
when I couldn’t do that, I tried to think of him as evil, as some- 
thing that the Lord who was loving me hated, and which I might 
hate, too. But it wouldn’t do. I broke down; I believe Christ 


TOAVS PRESCRIPTION 267 

himself broke me down; and when the Doctor gave me the bread 
and wine, and leaned over me praying, I prayed for poor Flash- 
man as if it had been you or Arthur.” 

East buried his face in his hands on the table. Tom could 
feel the table tremble. At last he looked up. ‘‘Thank you 
again, Tom,” said he; “you don’t know what you may have 
done for me to-night. I think I see now how the right sort of 
sympathy with poor devils is got at.” 

“And you’ll stop the Sacrament next time, won’t you?” said 
Tom. 

“Can I, before I’m confirmed?” 

“Go and ask the Doctor.” 

“I will.” 

That very night, after prayers. East followed the Doctor and 
the old verger bearing the candle upstairs. Tom watched, and 
saw the Doctor turn round when he heard footsteps following 
closer than usual, and say, “Hah, East! Do you want to speak 
to me, my man?” 

“If you please, sir”; and the private door closed, and Tom 
went to his study in a state of great trouble of mind. 

It was almost an hour before East came back; then he rushed 
in breathless. 

“Well, it’s all right,” he shouted, seizing Tom by the hand. 
“I feel as if a ton weight were off my mind.” 

“Hurra,” said Tom. “I knew it would be, but tell us all 
about it.” 

“Well, I just told him all about it. You can’t think how kind 
and gentle he was, the great grim man, whom I’ve feared more 
than anybody on earth. When I stuck, he lifted me, just as if 
I’d been a little child. And he seemed to know all I’d felt, and 
to have gone through it all. And I burst out crying — more 
than I’ve done this five years, and he sat down by me and 
stroked my head; and I went blundering on and told him all, 
much worse things than I’ve told you. And he wasn’t shocked 
a bit, and didn’t snub me, or tell me I was a fool, and it was all 
nothing but pride and wickedness, though I dare say it was. 


THE EFFECT THEREOF 


268 

And he didn’t tell me not to follow out my thoughts, and he 
didn’-t give me any cut-and-dried explanation. But when I’d 
done he just talked a bit — I can hardly remember what he said, 
yet; but it seemed to spread round me like healing, and strength, 
and light; and to bear me up, and plant me on a rock, where I 
could hold my footing, and fight for myself. I don’t know what 
to do, I feel so happy. And it’s all owing to you, dear old boy ! ” 
and he seized Tom’s hand again. 

“And you’re to come to the Communion?” said Tom. 

“Yes, and to be confirmed in the holidays.” 

Tom’s delight was as great as his friend’s. But he hadn’t 
yet had out all his own talk, and was bent on improving the oc- 
casion; so he proceeded to propound Arthur’s theory about not 
being sorry for his friends’ deaths, which he had hitherto kept 
in the background, and by which he was much exercised; for he 
didn’t feel it honest to take what pleased him and throw over 
the rest, and was trying vigorously to persuade himself that he 
should like all his best friends to die off-hand. 

But East’s powers of remaining serious were exhausted, and 
in five minutes he was saying the most ridiculous things he could 
think of, till Tom was almost getting angry again. 

Despite of himself, however, he couldn’t help laughing and 
giving it up when East appealed to him with “Well, Tom, you 
ain’t going to punch my head, I hope, because I insist upon 
being sorry when you got to earth?” 

And so their talk finished for that time, and they tried to 
learn first lesson; with very poor success, as appeared next 
morning, when they were called up and narrowly escaped being 
floored, which ill luck, however, did not sit heavily on either of 
their souls. 


SCHOOL MEMORIES 


269 


CHAPTER VIII 

TOM brown’s last MATCH 

“Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely, ere 
Youth fly, with life’s real tempest would be coping; 

The fruit of dreamy hoping 
Is, waking, blank despair.” 

Clough, Ambarvalia 

The curtain now rises upon the last act of our little drama; 
for hard-hearted publishers warn me that a single volume must 
of necessity have an end. Well, well! the pleasantest things 
must come to an end. I little thought last long vacation, 
when I began these pages to help while away some spare time 
at a watering place, how vividly many an old scene, which had 
lain hid away in some dusty old corner of my brain, would come 
back again, and stand before me as clear and bright as if it had 
happened yesterday. The book has been a most grateful task 
to me, and I only hope that all you, my dear young friends who 
read it (friends assuredly you must be if you get as far as this), 
will be half as sorry to come to the last stage as I am. 

Not but what there has been a solemn and a sad side to it. 
As the old scenes became living, and the actors in them became 
living too, many a grave in the Crimea and distant India, as 
well as in the quiet churchyards of our dear old country, seemed 
to open and send forth their dead, and their voices and looks 
and ways were again in one’s ears and eyes, as in the old school- 
days. But this was not sad; how should it be, if we believe as 
our Lord has taught us? How should it be, when one more turn 
of the wheel, and we shall be by their sides again, learning from 
them again, perhaps, as we did when we were new boys? 

Then there were others of the old faces so dear to us once, 
who had somehow or another just gone clean out of sight — are 
they dead or living? We know not, but the thought of them 
brings no sadness with it. Wherever they are, we can well 
believe they are doing God’s work and getting His wages. 


SCHOOL MEMORIES 


270 

But are there not some whom we still see sometimes in the 
streets, whose haunts and homes we know, whom we could 
probably find almost any day in the week if we were set to do it, 
yet from whom we are really farther than we are from the dead, 
and from those who have gone out of our ken? Yes, there are 
and must be such; and therein lies the sadness of old school 
memories. Yet of these our old comrades, from whom more 
than time and space separate us, there are some, by whose sides 
we can feel sure that we shall stand again when time shall be no 
more. We may think of one another now as dangerous fanatics 
or narrow bigots, with whom no truce is possible, from whom 
we shall only sever more and more to the end of our lives, whom 
it would be our respective duties to imprison or hang if we 
had the power. We must go our way, and they theirs, as long 
as flesh and spirit hold together; but let our own Rugby poet” 
speak words of healing for this trial, — 

“To veer how vain! on, onward strain. 

Brave barks! in light, in darkness too; 

Through winds and tides one compass guides, 

To that, and your own selves, be true. 

“But, O blithe breeze! and O great seas. 

Though ne’er that earliest parting past, 

On your wide plain they join again. 

Together lead them home at last. 

“One port, methought, alike they sought, 

One purpose hold where’er they fare. 

O bounding breeze, O rushing seas! 

At last, at last, unite them there!” ^ 

This is not mere longing, it is prophecy. So over these too, 
our friends who are friends no more, we sorrow not as men with- 
out hope. It is only for those who seem to us to have lost com- 
pass and purpose, and to be driven helplessly on rocks and quick- 
sands; whose lives are spent in the service of the world, the 
flesh, and the devil; for self alone, and not for their fellowmen, 
their country, or their God, that we must mourn and pray 
without sure hope and without light; trusting only that He, 

1 Quoted from Clough’s Amharvalia. 


THE END OF THE HALF YEAR 271 

in whose hands they as well as we are, who has died for them 
as for us, who sees all His creatures 

“ With larger other eyes than ours, 

To make allowance for us all,” ^ 

will, in His own way and at His own time, lead them also home. 


Another two years have passed, and it is again the end of the 
summer half year at Rugby; in fact the school has broken up. 
The fifth-form examinations were over last week, and upon them 
have followed the speeches and the sixth-form examinations 
for exhibitions ; ^ and they too are over now. The boys have gone 
to all the winds of heaven, except the town boys and the eleven, 
and the few enthusiasts besides who have asked leave to stay 
in their houses to see the result of the cricket matches. For 
this year the Wellesburn return match and the Marylebone 
match are played at Rugby, to the great delight of the town and 
neighborhood, and the sorrow of those aspiring young cricketers 
who have been reckoning for the last three months on showing 
off at Lords’ ground. 

The Doctor started for the Lakes ^ yesterday morning, after an 
interview with the captain of the eleven, in the presence of 
Thomas, at which he arranged in what school the cricket dinners 
were to be, and all other matters necessary for the satisfactory 
carrying out of the festivities, and warned them as to keeping 
all spirituous liquors out of the close, and having the gates 
closed by nine o’clock. 

The Wellesburn match was played out with great success 
yesterday, the school winning by three wickets; and to-day 
the great event of the cricketing year, the Marylebone match, 
is being played. What a match it has been ! The London eleven 
came down by an afternoon train yesterday, in time to see the 
end of the Wellesburn match; and as soon as it was over, their 

^ Quoted from Tennyson’s In Memoriam. 

2 Scholarships in the Universities. 

3 In the northwestern part of England. 


272 CRICKET MATCHES IN THE SCHOOL CLOSE 

leading men and umpire inspected the grounds, criticizing it 
rather unmercifully. The captain of the school eleven, and one 
or two others, who had played the Lords’ match before, and 
knew old Mr. Aislabie and several of the Lords’ men, accom- 
panied them; while the rest of the eleven looked on from under 
the Three Trees with admiring eyes, and asked one another the 
names of the illustrious strangers, and recounted how many runs 
each of them had made in the late matches in Bell’s Life. They 
looked such hard-bitten,^ wiry, whiskered fellows, that their 
young adversaries felt rather desponding as to the result of the 
morrow’s match. The ground was at last chosen, and two men 
set to work upon it to water and roll; and then, there being yet 
some half hour of daylight, some one had suggested a dance on 
the turf. The close was half full of citizens and their families, 
and the idea was hailed with enthusiasm. The cornopean 
player was still on the ground; in five minutes the eleven and half 
a dozen of the Wellesburn and Marylebone men got partners * 
somehow or another, and a merry country dance was going on, 
to which every one flocked, and new couples joined in every 
minute, till there were a hundred of them going down the middle 
and up again; and the long line of school buildings looked gravely 
down on them, every window glowing with the last rays of the 
western sun, and the rooks clanged about in the tops of the old 
elms, greatly excited, and resolved on having their country dance 
too, and the great flag flapped lazily in the gentle western breeze. 
Altogether it was a sight which would have made glad the heart 
of our brave old founder, Lawrence Sheriff, if he were half as 
good a fellow as I take him to have been. It was a cheerful 
sight to see; but what made it so valuable in the sight of the 
captain of the school eleven was, that he there saw his young 
hands shaking off their shyness and awe of the Lords’ men, as 
they crossed hands and capered about on the grass together; 
for the strangers entered into it all, and threw away their cigars, 
and danced and shouted like boys; while old Mr. Aislabie stood 
by looking on in his white hat, leaning on a bat, in benevolent 
^ Sharp. 


CRICKET MATCHES IN THE SCHOOL CLOSE 273 

enjoyment. “This hop will be worth thirty runs to us to-morrow 
and will be the making of Raggles and Johnson,” thinks the 
young leader, as he revolves many things in his mind, standing 
by the side of Mr. Aislabie, whom he will not leave for a minute, 
for he feels that the character of the school for courtesy is rest- 
ing on his shoulders. 

But when a quarter to nine struck, and he saw old Thomas 
beginning to fidget about with the keys in his hand, he thought 
of the Doctor’s parting monition, and stopped the cornopean 
at once, notwithstanding the loud-voiced remonstrances from 
all sides; and the crowd scattered away from the close, the 
eleven all going into the Schoolhouse, where supper and beds 
were provided for them by the Doctor’s orders. 

Deep had been the consultations at supper as to the order of 
going in, who should bowl the first over, whether it would be 
best to play steady or freely; and the youngest hands declared 
that they shouldn’t be a bit nervous, and praised their oppo- 
nents as the jolliest fellows in the world, except perhaps their 
old friends the Wellesburn men. How far a little good nature 
from their elders will go with the right sort of boys! 

The morning had dawned bright and warm, to the intense 
relief of many an anxious youngster, up betimes to mark the 
signs of the weather. The eleven went down in a body before 
breakfast for a plunge in the cold bath in the corner of the close. 
The ground was in splendid order, and soon after ten o’clock, 
before spectators had arrived, all was ready, and two of the 
Lords’ men took their places at the wicket; the school, with the 
usual liberality of young hands, having put their adversaries 
in first. Old Bailey stepped up to the wicket and called play, 
and the match has begun. 

“Oh, well bowled! well bowled, Johnson!” cries the captain, 
catching up the ball and sending it high above the rook trees, 
while the third Marylebone man walks away from the wicket, 
and old Bailey gravely sets up the middle stump again and puts 
the bails on. 


274 the marylebone match 

“How many runs? ” Away scamper three boys to the scoring 
table, and are back again in a minute amongst the rest of the 
eleven, who are collected together in a knot between wickets. 
“Only eighteen runs, and three wickets down!” “Huzza for 
old Rugby!” sings out Jack Raggles the long-stop, toughest and 
burliest of boys, commonly called “Swiper Jack”; and forth- 
with stands on his head and brandishes his legs in the air in 
triumph, till the next boy catches hold of his heels and throws 
him over on to his back. 

“Steady there; don’t be such an ass. Jack,” says the captain; 
“we haven’t got the best wicket yet. Ah, look out now at cover- 
point,” adds he, as he sees a long-armed, bare-headed, slashing- 
looking player coming to the wicket. “And, Jack, mind your 
hits; he steals more runs than any man in England.” 

And they all find that they have got their work to do now; 
the newcomer’s off-hitting is tremendous, and his running like 
a flash of lightning. He is never in his ground except when his 
wicket is down. Nothing in the whole game so trying to boys; 
he has stolen three byes in the first ten minutes, and Jack Rag- 
gles is furious and begins throwing over savagely to the farther 
wicket, until he is sternly stopped by the captain. It is all that 
young gentleman can do to keep his team steady, but he knows 
that everything depends on it and faces his work bravely. The 
score creeps up to fifty, the boys begin to look blank, and the 
spectators, who are now mustering strong, are very silent. 
The ball flies off his bat to all parts of the field, and he gives no 
rest and no catches to any one. But cricket is full of glorious 
chances, and the goddess who presides over it loves to bring down 
the most skillful players. Johnson the young bowler is getting 
wild and bowls a ball almost wide to the off; the batter steps 
out and cuts it beautifully to where cover-point is standing very 
deep, in fact almost off the ground. The ball comes skimming 
and twisting along about three feet from the ground; he rushes 
at it, and it sticks somehow or other in the fingers of his left 
hand, to the utter astonishment of himself and the whole field. 
Such a catch hasn’t been made in the close for years, and the 


THE MARYLEBONE MATCH 275 

cheering is maddening. “Pretty cricket,” says the captain, 
throwing himself on the ground by the deserted wicket with a 
long breath; he feels that a crisis has passed. 

I wish I had space to describe the whole match; how the 
captain stumped the next man off a leg-shooter, and bowled 
slow cobs to old Mr. Aislabie, who came in for the last wicket; 
how the Lords’ men were out by half past twelve o’clock for 
ninety-eight runs; how the captain of the school eleven went in 
first to give his men pluck, and scored twenty-five in beautiful 
style; how Rugby was only four behind in the first innings; 
what a glorious dinner they had in the fourth-form school, 
and how the cover-point hitter sang the most topping comic 
songs, and old Mr. Aislabie made the best speeches that ever 
were heard, afterwards. But I haven’t space, that’s the fact, 
and so you must fancy it all, and carry yourselves in to half 
past seven o’clock, when the school are again in, with five 
wickets down and only thirty-two runs to make to win. The 
Marylebone men played carelessly in their second innings, but 
they are working like horses now to save the match. 

There is much healthy, hearty, happy life scattered up and 
down the close; but the group to which I beg to call your especial 
attention is there, on the slope of the island, which looks towards 
the cricket ground. It consists of three figures; two are seated 
on a bench, and one on the ground at their feet. The first, a 
tall, slight, and rather gaunt man, with a bushy eyebrow and 
dry humorous smile, is evidently a clergyman. He is carelessly 
dressed, and looks rather used up, which isn’t much to be won- 
dered at, seeing that he has just finished six weeks of examination 
work; but there he basks and spreads himself out in the evening 
sun, bent on enjoying life, though he doesn’t quite know what 
to do with his arms and legs. Surely it is our friend the young 
master, whom we have had glimpses of before, but his face 
has gained a great deal since we last came across him. 

And by his side, in white flannel shirt and trousers, straw hat, 
the captain’s belt, and the untanned yellow cricket shoes which 
all the eleven wear, sits a strapping figure, near six feet high, with 


SOME OLD FRIENDS 


276 ' 

ruddy tanned face and whiskers, curly brown hair and a laugh- 
ing, dancing eye. He is leaning forward with his elbows resting 
on his knees, and dandling his favorite bat, with which he has 
made thirty or forty runs to-day, in his strong brown hands. 
It is Tom Brown, grown into a young man nineteen years old, 
a praepostor and captain of the eleven, spending his last day 
as a Rugby boy, and let us hope as much wiser as he is bigger 
since we last had the pleasure of coming across him. 

And at their feet on the warm dry ground, similarly dressed, 
sits Arthur, Turkish fashion, with his bat across his knees. 
He, too, is no longer a boy, less of a boy in fact than Tom, if 
one may judge from the thoughtfulness of his face, which is 
somewhat paler too than one could wish; but his figure, though 
slight, is well knit and active, and all his old timidity has dis- 
appeared, and is replaced by silent quaint fun, with which his 
face twinkles all over, as he listens to the broken talk between 
the other two, in which he joins every now and then. 

All three are watching the game eagerly, and joining in the 
cheering which follows every good hit. It is pleasing to see the 
easy, friendly footing which the pupils are on with their master; 
perfectly respectful, yet with no reserve, and nothing forced in 
their intercourse. Tom has clearly abandoned the old theory of 
‘‘natural enemies” in this case at any rate. 

But it is time to listen to what they are saying, and see what 
we can gather out of it. 

“I don’t object to your theory,” says the master, “and I 
allow you have made a fair case for yourself. But now, in such 
books as Aristophanes for instance, you’ve been reading a play 
this half with the Doctor, haven’t you?” 

“Yes, the Knights , answered Tom. 

“Well, I’m sure you would have enjoyed the wonderful humor 
of it twice as much if you had taken more pains with your schol- 
arship.” 

“Well, sir, I don’t believe any boy in the form enjoyed the 
sets-to between Cleon and the Sausage-seller more than I did — 
eh, Arthur? ” said Tom, giving him a stir with his foot. 


AND THEIR TALK 277 

“Yes, I must say he did,” said Arthur. “I think, sir, you’ve 
hit upon the wrong book there.” 

“Not a bit of it,” said the master. “Why, in those very 
passages of arms, how can you thoroughly appreciate them unless 
you are master of the weapons? and the weapons are the lan- 
guage which you. Brown, have never half worked at; and so, 
as I say, you must have lost all the delicate shades of meaning 
which make the best part of the fun.” 

“Oh! well played — bravo, Johnson!” shouted Arthur, drop- 
ping his bat and clapping furiously, and Tom joined in with 
a “bravo, Johnson!” which might have been heard at the 
chapel. 

“Eh! what was it? I didn’t see,” inquired the master; “they 
only got one run, I thought?” 

“No, but such a ball, three quarters length, and coming 
straight for his leg bail. Nothing but that turn of the wrist 
could have saved him, and he drew it away to leg for a safe one. 
Bravo, Johnson!” 

“How well they are bowling, though,” said Arthur; “they 
don’t mean to be beat, I can see.” 

“There now,” struck in the master, “you see that’s just what 
I have been preaching this half hour. The delicate play is the 
true thing. I don’t understand cricket, so I don’t enjoy those 
fine draws which you tell me are the best play, though when you 
or Raggles hit a ball hard away for six I am as delighted as any 
one. Don’t you see the analogy? ” 

“Yes, sir,” answered Tom, looking up roguishly, “I see; 
only the question remains whether I should have got most good 
by understanding Greek particles or cricket thoroughly. I’m 
such a thick, I never should have had time for both.” 

“ I see you are an incorrigible, ” said the master with a chuckle; 
“but I refute you by an example. Arthur there has taken in 
Greek and cricket too.” 

“Yes, but no thanks to him; Greek came natural to him. 
Why, when he first came I remember he used to read Herodotus 
for pleasure as I did Don Quixote^ and couldn’t have made a 


278 SOME OLD FRIENDS 

false concord ^ if he’d tried ever so hard — and then I looked after 
his cricket.” 

“Out! Bailey has given him out — do you see, Tom?” cries 
Arthur. “How foolish of them to run so hard.” 

“Well, it can’t be helped, he has played very well. Whose 
turn is it to go in?” 

“I don’t know; they’ve got your list in the tent.” 

“Let’s go and see,” said Tom, rising; but at this moment 
Jack Raggles and two or three more came running to the island 
moat. 

“Oh, Brown, mayn’t I go in next?” shouts the Swiper. 

“Whose name is next on the list?” says the captain. 

“Winter’s and then Arthur’s,” answers the boy who carries 
it; “but there are only twenty-six runs to get, and no time to 
lose. I heard Mr. Aislabie say that the stumps must be drawn 
at a quarter past eight exactly.” 

“Oh, do let the Swiper go in, ” chorus the boys; so Tom yields 
against his better judgment. 

“I dare say now I’ve lost the match by this nonsense,” he 
says, as he sits down again; “they’ll be sure to get Jack’s wicket 
in three or four minutes; however, you’ll have the chance, sir, 
of seeing a hard hit or two,” adds he smihng and turning to 
the master. 

“Come, none of your irony. Brown,” answers the master. 
“I’m beginning to understand the game scientifically. What 
a noble game it is tool” 

“Isn’t it? But it’s more than a game. It’s an institution,” 
said Tom. 

“Yes,” said Arthur, “the birthright of British boys old and 
young, as habeas corpus^ and trial by jury are of British men.” 

“The discipline and reliance on one another which it teaches 
is so valuable, I think,” went on the master, “it ought to be 
such an unselfish game. It merges the individual in the eleven; 
he doesn’t play that he may win, but that his side may.” 

“That’s very true,” said Tom, “and that’s why football and 
1 Grammatical construction. 


AND THEIR TALK 279 

cricket, now one comes to think of it, are such much better 
games than fives or hare and hounds, or any others where the 
object is to come in first or to win for oneself, and not that one’s 
side may win.” 

‘‘And then the captain of the eleven!” said the master, “what 
a post is his in our school world! almost as hard as the Doctor’s; 
requiring skill and gentleness and firmness, and I know not 
what other rare qualities.” 

“Which don’t he may wish he may get?” said Tom, laughing; 
“at any rate he hasn’t got them yet, or he wouldn’t have been 
such a flat to-night as to let Jack Raggles go in out of his 
turn.” 

“Ah! the Doctor never would have done that,” said Arthur 
demurely. “Tom you’ve a great deal to learn yet in the art of 
ruling.” 

“Well, I wish you’d tell the Doctor so, then, and get him to 
let me stop till I’m twenty. I don’t want to leave, I’m sure.” 

“What a sight it is,” broke in the master, “the Doctor as a 
ruler. Perhaps ours is the only little corner of the British Em- 
pire which is thoroughly, wisely, and strongly ruled just now. 
I’m more and more thankful every day of my life that I came 
here to be under him.” 

“So am I, I’m sure,” said Tom; “and more and more sorry 
that I’ve got to leave.” 

“Every place and thing one sees here remind one of some 
wise act of his,” went on the master. “This island now — 
you remember the time. Brown, when it was laid out in small 
gardens and cultivated by frost-bitten fags in February and 
March?” 

“Of course I do,” said Tom; “didn’t I hate spending two 
hours in the afternoons grubbing in the tough dirt with the 
stump of a fives’ bat? But turf cart was good fun enough.” 

“I dare say it was, but it was always leading to fights with 
the townspeople; and then the stealing flowers out of all the 
gardens in Rugby for the Easter show was abominable.” 

“Well, so it was,” said Tom, looking down, “but we fags 


SOME OLD FRIENDS 


280 

couldn’t help ourselves. But what has that to do with the Doc- 
tor’s ruling?” 

“A great deal, I think,” said the master; “what brought 
island fagging to an end?” 

“Why, the Easter speeches were put off till midsummer,” 
said Tom, “and the sixth had the gymnastic poles put up here.” 

“Well, and who changed the time of the speeches and put 
the idea of gymnastic poles into the heads of their worships, 
the sixth form?” said the master. 

“The Doctor, I suppose,” said Tom. “I never thought of 
that.” 

“Of course you didn’t,” said the master, “or else, fag as 
you were, you would have shouted with the whole school against 
putting down old customs. And that’s the way that all the 
Doctor’s reforms have been carried out when he has been left 
to himself — quietly and naturally, putting a good thing in the 
place of a bad, and letting the bad die out; no wavering and no 
hurry — the best thing that could be done for the time' being, 
and patience for the rest.” 

“Just Tom’s own way,” chimed in Arthur, nudging Tom 
with his elbow, “driving a nail where it will go”; to which allu- 
sion Tom answered by a sly kick. 

“Exactly so,” said the master, innocent of the allusion and 
by-play. 

Meantime, Jack Raggles, with his sleeves tucked up above his 
great brown elbows, scorning pads and gloves, has presented 
himself at the wicket, and having run one for a forward drive 
of Johnson’s, is about to receive his first ball. There are only 
twenty-four runs to make and four wickets to go down, a win- 
ning match if they play decently steady. The ball is a very 
swift one and rises fast, catching Jack on the outside of the thigh 
and bounding away as if from India rubber, while they run two 
for a leg bye amidst great applause and shouts from Jack’s 
many admirers. The next ball is a beautifully pitched ball for 
the outer stump, which the reckless and unfeeling Jack catches 
hold of, and hits right round to leg for five, while the applause 


JACK RAGGLES^ INNING 281 

becomes deafening: only seventeen runs to get with four wickets 
— the game is all but ours! 

It is over now, and Jack walks swaggering about his wicket, 
with the bat over his shoulder, while Mr. Aislabie holds a short 
parley with his men. Then the cover-point hitter, that cunning 
man, goes on to bowl slow twisters. Jack waves his hand trium- 
phantly towards the tent, as much as to say, “See if I don’t 
finish it all off now in three hits.” 

Alas, my son Jack! the enemy is too old for thee. The first 
ball of the over Jack steps out and meets, swiping with all his 
force. If he had only allowed for the twist! but he hasn’t, and 
so the ball goes spinning up straight into the air, as if it would 
never come down again. Away runs Jack, shouting and trust- 
ing to the chapter of accidents, but the bowler runs steadily 
under it, judging every spin, and calling out “I have it, ” catches 
it and playfully pitches it on to the back of the stalwart Jack, 
who is departing with a rueful countenance. 

“I knew how it would be,” says Tom, rising. “Come along, 
the game’s getting very serious.” 

So they leave the island and go to the tent, and after deep 
consultation Arthur is sent in, and goes off to the wicket with a 
last exhortation from Tom to play steady and keep his bat 
straight. To the suggestions that Winter is the best bat left, 
Tom only replies,“ Arthur is the steadiest and Johnson will 
make the runs if the wicket is only kept up.” 

“I am surprised to see Arthur in the eleven,” said the master, 
as they stood together in front of the dense crowd, which was now 
closing in round the ground. 

“Well, I’m not quite sure that he ought to be in for his play, ” 
said Tom, “but I couldn’t help putting him in. It will do him 
so much good, and you can’t think what I owe him.” 

The master smiled. The clock strikes eight, and the whole 
field becomes fevered with excitement. Arthur, after two nar- 
row escapes, scores one, and Johnson gets the ball. The bowling 
and fielding are superb, and Johnson’s batting worthy the oc- 
casion. He makes here a two, and there a one, managing to 


THE FINISH 


282 

keep the ball to himself, and Arthur backs up and runs perfectly; 
only eleven runs to make now, and the crowd scarcely breathe. 
At last Arthur gets the ball again, and actually drives it forward 
for two, and feels prouder than when he got the three best prizes, 
at hearing Tom’s shout of joy, ‘‘Well played, well played, young 
un!” 

But the next ball is too much for a young hand, and his bails 
fly different ways. Nine runs to make, and two wickets to go 
down — it is too much for human nerves. 

Before Winter can get in, the omnibus which is to take the 
Lords’ men to the train pulls up at the side of the close, and Mr. 
Aislabie and Tom consult and give out that the stumps will be 
drawn after the next over. And so ends the great match. Win- 
ter and Johnson carry out their bats, and, it being a one day’s 
match, the Lords’ men are declared the winners, they having 
scored the most in the first innings. 

But such a defeat is a victory; so think Tom and all the school 
eleven, as they accompany their conquerors to the omnibus, 
and send them off with three ringing cheers, after Mr. Aislabie 
has shaken hands all round, saying to Tom, “I must compliment 
you, sir, on your eleven, and I hope we shall have you for a 
member if you come up to town.” 

As Tom and the rest of the eleven were turning back into the 
close and everybody was beginning to cry out for another country 
dance, encouraged by the success of the night before, the young 
master, wno was just leaving the close, stopped him and asked 
him to come up to tea at half past eight, adding, “I won’t keep 
you more than half an hour, and ask Arthur to come up too.” 

“I’ll come up with you directly, if you’ll let me,” said Tom, 
“for I feel rather melancholy, and not quite up to the country 
dance and supper with the rest.” 

“Do by all means, ” said the master; “I’ll wait here for you.” 

So Tom went off to get his boots and things from the tent, 
to tell Arthur of the invitation, and to speak to his second in 
command about stopping the dancing and shutting up the 
close as soon as it grew dusk. Arthur promised to follow as soon 


SHUT OUT 2S3 

as he had a dance. So Tom handed his things over to the man 
in charge of the tent, and walked quietly away to the gate where 
the master was waiting, and the two took their way together 
up the Hillmorton-road. 

Of course they found the master^s house locked up and all 
the servants away in the close, about this time no doubt footing 
it away on the grass with extreme delight to themselves, and in 
utter obhvion of the unfortunate bachelor their master, whose 
one enjo3mient in the shape of meals was his ''dish of tea’^ 
(as our grandmothers called it) in the evening; and the phrase 
was apt in his case, for he always poured his out into the saucer 
before drinking. Great was the good man’s horror at finding 
himself shut out of his own house. Had he been alone, he would 
have treated it as a matter of course, and would have strolled 
contentedly up and down his gravel walk until some one came 
home; but he was hurt at the stain on his character of host, 
especially as the guest was a pupil. However, the guest seemed 
to think it a great joke, and presently, as they poked round the 
house, mounted a wall, from which he could reach a passage 
window; the window, as it turned out, was not bolted, so in 
another minute Tom was in the house and down at the front 
door, which he opened from inside. The master chuckled grimly 
at this burglarious entry, and insisted on leaving the hall door 
and two of the front windows open, to frighten the truants on 
their return; and then the two set about foraging for tea, in which 
operation the master was much at fault, having the faintest 
possible idea of where to find anything, and being moreover 
wondrously short-sighted; but Tom by a sort of instinct knew 
the right cupboards in the kitchen and pantry, and soon managed 
to place on the snuggery ^ table better materials for a meal than 
had appeared there probably during the reign of his tutor, who 
was then and there initiated, amongst other things, into the 
excellence of that mysterious condiment, a dripping-cake. The 
cake was newly baked, and all rich and flaky; Tom had found 
it reposing in the cook’s private cupboard, awaiting her return; 

1 The “den” of the master. 


HARRY EAST 


284 

and as a warning to her, they finished it to the last crumb. 
The kettle sang away merrily on the hob ^ of the snuggery, for, 
notwithstanding the time of year, they lighted a fire, throwing 
both the windows wide open at the same time; the heap of books 
and papers were pushed away to the other end of the table, 
and the great solitary engraving of King’s College Chapel ^ over 
the mantelpiece looked less stiff than usual, as they settled 
themselves down in the twilight to the serious drinking of 
tea. 

After some talk on the match and other indifferent subjects, 
the conversation came naturally back to Tom’s approaching 
departure, over which he began again to make his moan. 

“Well, we shall all miss you quite as much as you will miss 
us,” said the master. “You are the Nestor of the school now, 
are you not?” 

“Yes, ever since East left,” answered Tom. 

“By the bye, have you heard from him?” 

“Yes, I had a letter in February, just before he started for 
India to join his regiment.” 

“He will make a capital officer.” 

“Ay, won’t he I” said Tom, brightening; “no fellow could 
handle boys better, and I suppose soldiers are very like boys. 
And he’ll never tell them to go where he won’t go himself. No 
mistake about that — a braver fellow never walked.” 

“His year in the sixth will have taught him a good deal that 
will be useful to him now.” 

“ So it will,” said Tom, staring into the fire. “ Poor dear Harry,” 
he went on, “how well I remember the day we were put out of 
the twenty. How he rose to the situation, and burned his cigar 
cases, and gave away his pistols, and pondered on the consti- 
tutional authority of the sixth, and his new duties to the Doctor, 
and the fifth form, and the fags. Ay, and no fellow ever acted 
up to them better, though he was always a people’s man — for 
the fags and against constituted authorities. He couldn’t help 

1 That part of a grate on which food is placed to be warmed. 

2 The beautiful chapel of King’s College, Cambridge. 


WORK IN THE WORLD 285 

that, you know. I’m sure the Doctor must have liked him?” 
said Tom looking up inquiringly. 

“The Doctor sees the good in every one, and appreciates it,” 
said the master dogmatically; “but I hope East will get a good 
colonel. He won’t do if he can’t respect those above him. How 
long it took him, even here, to learn the lesson of obeying.” 

“Well, I wish I were alongside of him,” said Tom. “If I 
can’t be at Rugby, I want to be at work in the world, and not 
dawdling away three years at Oxford.” 

“What do you mean by ^at work in the world’?” said the 
master, pausing, with his lips close to his saucerful of tea, and 
peering at Tom over it. 

“Well, I mean real work; one’s profession; whatever one will 
have really to do and make one’s living by. I want to be doing 
some real good, feeling that I am not only at play in the world, ” 
answered Tom, rather puzzled to find out himself what he really 
did mean. 

“You are mixing up two very different things in your head, 
I think. Brown,” said the master, putting down the empty 
saucer, “and you ought to get clear about them. You talk of 
‘working to get your living’ and ‘doing some real good in the 
world’ in the same breath. Now, you may be getting a very 
good living in a profession, and yet doing no good at all in the 
world, but quite the contrary, at the same time. Keep the 
latter before you as your one object, and you will be right, 
whether you make a living or not; but if you dwell on the other, 
you’ll very likely drop into mere money-making and let the 
world take care of itself for good or evil. Don’t be in a hurry 
about finding your work in the world for yourself, you are not 
old enough to judge for yourself yet; but just look about you in 
the place you find yourself in and try to make things a little 
better and honester there. You’ll find plenty to keep your hand 
in at Oxford, or wherever else you go. And don’t be led away 
to think this part of the world important, and that unimportant. 
Every corner of the world is important. No man knows whether 
this part or that is most so, but every man may do some honest 


THE DOCTOR^S WORK 


286 

work in his own corner.” And then the good man went on to 
talk wisely to Tom of the sort of work which he might take up 
as an undergraduate, and warned him of the prevalent univer- 
sity sins, and explained to him the many and great differences 
between university and school life, till the twilight changed into 
darkness, and they heard the truant servants stealing in by the 
back entrance. 

“I wonder where Arthur can be,” said Tom at last, looking 
at his watch; “why, it’s nearly half past nine already.” 

“Oh, he is comfortably at supper with the eleven, forgetful 
of his oldest friends,” said the master. “Nothing has given 
me greater pleasure, ” he went on, “ than your friendship for him; 
it has been the making of you both.” 

“Of me, at any rate,” answered Tom; “I should never have 
been here now but for him. It was the luckiest chance in the 
world that sent him to Rugby, and made him my chum.” 

“Why do you talk of lucky chances?” said the master. “I 
don’t know that there are any such things in the world; at any 
rate there was neither luck nor chance in that matter.” 

Tom looked at him inquiringly, and he went on. “Do 
you remember when the Doctor lectured you and East at the 
end of one half year, when you were in the shell, and had been 
getting into all sorts of scrapes?” 

“Yes, well enough,” said Tom; “it was the half year before 
Arthur came.” 

“Exactly so,” answered the master. “Now, I was with him 
a few minutes afterwards, and he was in great distress about 
you two. And, after some talk, we both agreed that you in 
particular wanted some object in the school beyond games and 
mischief, for it was quite clear that you never would make the 
regular school work your first object. And so the Doctor, at 
the beginning of the next half year, looked out the best of the 
new boys, and separated you and East, and put the young boy 
into your study, in the hope that when you had somebody to 
lean on you, you would begin to stand a little steadier yourself, 
and get manliness and thoughtfulness. And I can assure you 


THE DOCTORS WORK 


287 

he has watched the experiment ever since with great satisfaction. 
Ah! not one of you boys will ever know the anxiety you have 
given him, or the care with which he has watched over every 
step in your school lives.’’ 

Up to this time Tom had never wholly given in to or under- 
stood the Doctor. At first he had thoroughly feared him. For 
some years, as I have tried to show, he had learned to regard 
him with love and respect and to think him a very great and wise 
and good man. But, as regarded his own position in the school, 
of which he was no little proud, Tom had no idea of giving any 
one credit for it but himself; and, truth to tell, was a very self- 
conceited young gentleman on the subject. He was wont to 
boast that he had fought his own way fairly up the school, and 
had never made up to or been taken up by any big fellow or 
master, and that it was now quite a different place from what it 
was when he first came. And, indeed, though he didn’t actually 
boast of it, yet in his secret soul he did to a great extent believe, 
that the great reform in the school had been owing quite as much 
to himself as to any one else. Arthur, he acknowledged, had 
done him good and taught him a good deal, so had other boys in 
different ways, but they had not had the same means of influence 
on the school in general; and as for the Doctor, why, he was a 
splendid master, but every one knew that masters could do very 
little out of school hours. In short, he felt on terms of equality 
with his chief so far as the social state of the school was con- 
cerned, and thought that the Doctor would find it no easy mat- 
ter to get on without him. Moreover, his school Toryism ^ was 
still strong, and he looked still with some jealousy on the Doctor, 
as somewhat of a fanatic in the matter of change, and thought 
it very desirable for the school that he should have some wise 
person (such as himself) to look sharply after vested school 
rights, and see that nothing was done to the injury of the repub- 
lic without due protest. 

It was a new light to him to find, that, besides teaching the 
sixth, and governing and guiding the whole school, editing clas- 
1 Support of the established order. 


A NEW LIGHT 


288 

sics, and writing histories, the great headmaster had found 
time in those busy years to watch over the career, even of him, 
Tom Brown, and his particular friends — and, no doubt, of 
fifty other boys at the same time; and all this without taking 
the least credit to himself, or seeming to know or let any one 
else know, that he ever thought particularly of any boy at all. 

However, the Doctor’s victory was complete from that mo- 
ment over Tom Brown at any rate. He gave way at all points, 
and the enemy marched right over him, cavalry, infantry, and 
artillery, the land transport corps, and the camp followers. It 
had taken eight long years to do it, but now it was done thor- 
oughly, and there wasn’t a corner of him left which didn’t be- 
lieve in the Doctor. Had he returned to school again, and the 
Doctor begun the half year by abolishing fagging, and football, 
and the Saturday half holiday, or all or any of the most cherished 
school institutions, Tom would have supported him with the 
blindest faith. And so, after a half confession of his previous 
shortcomings, and sorrowful adieus to his tutor, from whom he 
received two beautifully bound volumes of the Doctor’s ser- 
mons, as a parting present, he marched down to the School- 
house, a hero worshiper, who would have satisfied the soul 
of Thomas Carlyle ^ himself. 

There he found the eleven at high jinks after supper. Jack 
Raggles shouting comic songs and performing feats of strength, 
and was greeted by a chorus of mingled remonstrance at his 
desertion and joy at his reappearance. And, falling in with the 
humor of the evening, was soon as great a boy as all the rest; 
and at ten o’clock was chaired round the quadrangle, on one 
of the hall benches borne aloft by the eleven, shouting in chorus, 
“For he’s a jolly good fellow,” while old Thomas, in a mating 
mood, and the other Schoolhouse servants, stood looking on. 

And the next morning after breakfast he squared up all the 
cricketing accounts, went round to his tradesmen and other 
acquaintance, and said his hearty good-bys; and by twelve 
o’clock was in the train and away for London, no longer a school- 
^ The author of Heroes and Hero Worship. 


FINIS 289 

boy, and divided in his thoughts between hero worship, honest 
regrets over the long stage of his life which now was slipping 
out of sight behind him, and hopes and resolves for the next 
stage, upon which he was entering with all the confidence of a 
young traveler. 


CHAPTER IX 

FINIS 

“Strange friend, past, present, and to be; 

Loved deeplier, darklier understood; 

Behold, I dream a dream of good, 

And mingle all the world with thee.” 

Tennyson. 

In the summer of 1842 our hero stopped once again at the 
well-known station and, leaving his bag and fishing rod with 
a porter, walked slowly and sadly up towards the town. It was 
now July. He had rushed away from Oxford the moment that 
term was over for a fishing ramble in Scotland with two college 
friends, and had been for three weeks living on oatcake, mutton 
hams, and whisky, in the wildest parts of Skye. They had de- 
scended one sultry evening on the little inn at Kyle Rhea ferry, 
and while Tom and another of the party put their tackle to- 
gether and began exploring the stream for a sea trout for supper, 
the third strolled into the house to arrange for their entertain- 
ment. Presently he came out in a loose blouse and slippers, 
a short pipe in his mouth, and an old newspaper in his hand, 
and threw himself on the heathery scrub which met the shingle,^ 
within easy hail of the fishermen. There he lay, the picture of 
free-and-easy, loafing, hand-to-mouth young England, “improv- 
ing his mind,’’ as he shouted to them, by the perusal of the 
fortnight-old weekly paper, soiled with the marks of toddy 
glasses and tobacco ashes, the legacy of the last traveler, which 
he had hunted out from the kitchen of the little hostelry; and, 
being a youth of a communicative turn of mind, began impart- 
ing the contents to the fishermen as he went on. 

^ Pebbly beach. 


FINIS 


290 

“What a bother they are making about these wretched Corn 
laws;” here’s three or four columns full of nothing but sliding 
scales and fixed duties. — Hang this tobacco, it’s always going 
out! Ah, here’s something better, a splendid match between 
Kent and England, Brown! Kent winning by three wickets; 
Felix fifty-six runs without a chance, and not out!” 

Tom, intent on a fish which had risen at him twice, answered 
only with a grunt. 

“Anything about the Goodwood?” ^ called out the third man. 

“Rory-o-More. Butterfly colt amiss,” shouted the student. 

“Just my luck,” grumbled the inquirer, jerking his flies off 
the water, and throwing again with a heavy sullen splash, and 
frightening Tom’s fish. 

“I say, can’t you throw lighter over there? we ain’t fishing 
for grampuses,” shouted Tom across the stream. 

“Hullo, Brown! here’s something for you,” called out the 
reading man next moment. “Why, your old master, Arnold of 
Rugby, is dead.”” 

Tom’s hand stopped half way in his cast, and his line and 
flies went all tangling round and round his rod; you might have 
knocked him over with a feather. Neither of his companions 
took any notice of him, luckily; and with a violent effort he set 
to work mechanically to disentangle his line. He felt completely 
carried off his moral and intellectual legs, as if he had lost his 
standing point in the invisible world. Besides which, the deep 
loving loyalty which he felt for his old leader made the shock 
intensely painful. It was the first great wrench of his life, the 
first gap which the angel Death had made in his circle, and he 
felt numbed, and beaten down, and spiritless. Well, well! I 
believe it was good for him and for many others in like case, 
who had to learn by that loss that the soul of man cannot stand 
or lean upon any human prop, however strong, and wise, and 
good; but that He upon whom alone it can stand and lean will 
knock away all such props in His own wise and merciful way, 
until there is no ground or stay left but Himself, the Rock of 
^ A famous, annual horse-racing event. 


FINIS 


291 

Ages, upon whom alone a sure foundation for every soul of man 
is laid. 

As he wearily labored at his line, the thought struck him, 
‘‘It may all be false, a mere newspaper lie,” and he strode up 
to the recumbent smoker. 

“Let me look at the paper,” said he. 

“Nothing else in it,” answered the other, handing it up to 
him listlessly. — “Hullo, Brown! what’s the matter, old fellow — 
ain’t you well? ” 

“Where is it?” said Tom, turning over the leaves, his hands 
trembling, and his eyes swimming, so that he could not read. 

“What? What are you looking for?” said his friend jumping 
up and looking over his shoulder. 

“That — ^about Arnold,” said Tom. 

“Oh, here,” said the other, putting his finger on the para- 
graph. Tom read it over and over again; there could be no mis- 
take of identity, though the account was short enough. 

“Thank you,” said he at last, dropping the paper, “I shall 
go for a walk; don’t you and Herbert wait supper for me.” 
And away he strode, up over the moor at the back of the house, 
to be alone and master his grief if possible. 

His friend looked after him, sympathizing and wondering, 
and, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, walked over to Herbert. 
After a short parley, they walked together up to the house. 

“I’m afraid that confounded newspaper has spoiled Brown’s 
fun for this trip.” 

“How odd that he should be so fond of his old master,” said 
Herbert. Yet they also were both public-school men. 

The two, however, notwithstanding Tom’s prohibition, waited 
supper for him and had everything ready when he came back 
some half an hour afterwards. But he could not join in their 
cheerful talk, and the party was soon silent, notwithstanding 
the efforts of all three. One thing only had Tom resolved, 
and that was, that he couldn’t stay in Scotland any longer; he 
felt an irresistible longing to get to Rugby, and then home, and 
soon broke it to the others, who had too much tact to oppose. 


FINIS 


292 

So by daylight the next morning he was marching through 
Ross-shire, and in the evening hit the Caledonian canal, took 
the next steamer, and traveled as fast as boat and railway 
could carry him to the Rugby station. 

As he walked up to the town he felt shy and afraid of being 
seen, and took the back streets; why, he didn’t know, but he 
followed his instinct. At the school gates he made a dead pause; 
there was not a soul in the quadrangle — all was lonely, and silent, 
and sad. So, with another effort he strode through the quadran- 
gle and into the Schoolhouse offices. 

He found the little matron in her room in deep mourning, 
shook her hand, tried to talk, and moved nervously about; 
she was evidently thinking of the same subject as he, but he 
couldn’t begin talking. 

“Where shall I find Thomas?” said he at last, getting des- 
perate. 

“In the servants’ hall, I think, sir. But won’t you take any- 
thing?” said the matron, looking rather disappointed. 

“No, thank you, ” said he, and strode off again to find the old 
verger, who was sitting in his little den as of old, puzzling over 
hieroglyphics. 

He looked up through his spectacles as Tom seized his hand 
and wrung it. 

“Ah? you’ve heard all about it, sir, I see,” said he. 

Tom nodded, and then sat down on the shoe board while the 
old man told his tale, and wiped his spectacles and fairly flowed 
over with quaint, homely, honest sorrow. 

By the time he had done, Tom felt much better. 

“Where is he buried, Thomas?” said he at last. 

“Under the altar in the chapel, sir,” answered Thomas. 
“You’d like to have the key, I dare say.” 

“Thank you, Thomas — yes, I should very much.” And the 
old man fumbled among his bunch, and then got up as though 
he would go with him; but after a few steps stopped short, and 
said, “Perhaps you’d like to go by yourself, sir?” 

Tom nodded, and the bunch of keys was handed to him, with 


FINIS 


293 

an injunction to be sure and lock the door after him, and bring 
them back before eight o’clock. 

He walked quickly through the quadrangle and out into the 
close. The longing which had been upon him and driven him 
thus far, like the gadfly ^ in the Greek legends, giving him no rest 
in mind or body, seemed all of a sudden not to be satisfied, but 
to shrivel up and pall. “Why should I go on? It’s no use,” 
he thought, and threw himself at full length on the turf, and 
looked vaguely and listlessly at all the well-known objects. 
There were a few of the town boys playing cricket, their wicket 
pitched on the best piece in the middle of the big-side ground, 
a sin about equal to sacrilege in the eyes of a captain of the 
eleven. He was very nearly getting up to go and send them off. 
“Pshaw! they won’t remember me. They’ve more right there 
than I,” he muttered. And the thought that his scepter had 
departed, and his mark was wearing out, came home to him for 
the first time, and bitterly enough. He was lying on the very 
spot where the fights came off; here he himself had fought six 
years ago his first and last battle. He conjured up the scene 
till he could almost hear the shouts of the ring and East’s 
whisper in his ear, and looking across the close to the Doctor’s 
private door, half expected to see it open, and the tall figure 
in cap and gown come striding under the elm trees towards him. 

No, no! that sight could never be seen again. There was no 
flag flying on the round tower; the Schoolhouse windows were 
all shuttered up; and when the flag went up again, and the shut- 
ters came down it would be to welcome a stranger. All that 
was left on earth of him whom he had honored was lying cold 
and still under the chapel floor. He would go in and see the place 
and then leave it once for all. New men and new methods 
might do for other people; let those who would worship the 
rising star; he at least would be faithful to the sun which had set. 
And so he got up, and walked to the chapel door and unlocked 
it, fancying himself the only mourner in all the broad land and 
feeding on his own selfish sorrow. 

1 Read the myth of Jupiter and lo. 


FINIS 


294 

He passed through the vestibule, and then paused for a mo- 
ment to glance over the empty benches. His heart was still 
proud and high, and he walked up to the seat which he had last 
occupied as a sixth-form boy, and sat himself down there to 
collect his thoughts. 

And, truth to tell, they needed collecting and setting in order 
not a little. The memories of eight years were all dancing 
through his brain and carrying him about whither they would ; 
while beneath them all, his heart was throbbing with the dull 
sense of a loss that could never be made up to him. The rays 
of the evening sun came solemnly through the painted windows 
above his head and fell in gorgeous colors on the opposite wall, 
and the perfect stillness soothed his spirit by little and little. 
And he turned to the pulpit and looked at it, and then, leaning 
forward with his head on his hands, groaned aloud. “If he 
could only have seen the Doctor again for one five minutes, 
have told him all that was in his heart, what he owed to him, 
how he loved and reverenced him, and would by God’s help 
follow his steps in life and death, he could have borne it all 
without a murmur. But that he should have gone away forever 
without knowing it all was too much to bear.” “But am I 
sure that he does not know it all?” The thought made him 
start. “May he not even now be near me, in this very chapel? 
If he be, am I sorrowing as he would have me sorrow — as I 
should wish to have sorrowed when I shall meet him again?” 

He raised himself up and looked round; and after a minute 
rose and walked humbly down to the lowest bench, and sat 
down on the very seat which he had occupied on his first Sunday 
at Rugby. And then the old memories rushed back again, but 
softened and subdued, and soothing him as he let himself be 
carried away by them. And he looked up at the great painted 
window above the altar, and remembered how when a little 
boy he used to try not to look through it at the elm trees and the 
rooks, before the painted glass came — and the subscription for 
the painted glass, and the letter he wrote home for money to 
give to it. And there, down below, was the very name of the 


FINIS 295 

boy who sat on his right hand on that first day, scratched rudely 
in the oak paneling. 

And then came the thought of all his old schoolfellows; and 
form after form of boys, nobler, and braver, and purer than he, 
rose up and seemed to rebuke him. Could he not think of them, 
and what they had felt and were feeling, they who had honored 
and loved from the first the man whom he had taken years to 
know and love? Could he not think of those yet dearer to him 
who was gone, who bore his name and shared his blood, and were 
now without a husband or a father? Then the grief which he 
began to share with others became gentle and holy, and he rose 
up once more, and walked up the steps to the altar; and, while 
the tears flowed freely down his cheeks, knelt down humbly 
and hopefully, to lay down there his share of a burden which 
had proved itself too heavy for him to bear in his own strength. 

Here let us leave him; where better could we leave him than 
at the altar before which he had first caught a glimpse of the 
glory of his birthright, and felt the drawing of the bond which 
links all living souls together in one brotherhood — at the grave 
beneath the altar of him who had opened his eyes to see that 
glory, and softened his heart till it could feel that bond? 

And let us not be hard on him, if at that moment his soul is 
fuller of the tomb and him who lies there than of the altar and 
Him of whom it speaks. Such stages have to be gone through, 
I believe, by all young and brave souls, who must win their way 
through hero-worship to the worship of Him who is the King and 
Lord of heroes. For it is only through our mysterious human 
relationships, through the love and tenderness and purity of 
mothers and sisters and wives, through the strength and courage 
and wisdom of fathers and brothers and teachers, that we can 
come to the knowledge of Him in whom alone the love, and the 
tenderness, and the purity, and the strength, and the courage, 
and the wisdom of all these dwell forever and ever in perfect 
fullness. 


NOTES 


(The numbers in heavy type refer to pages of the text.) 

13. Browns. “I chose the name ‘Brown,’ because it stood first 
in the trio of ‘Brown, Jones, and Robinson,’ which has become a 
sort of synonym for the middle classes of Great Britain. ... I 
wanted the commonest name I could get, and did not want any name 
which had the least heroic, or aristocratic, or even respectable, savor 
about it. Therefore I had a natural leaning to the combination 
[Tom and Brown] which I found ready to my hand.” From Preface 
to Tom Brown at Oxford, by Thomas Hughes. 

16. beliefs. What is the difference between “opinions” and 
“beliefs”? 

16. Vale of White Horse. The river Ock, rising in the hills of 
Berkshire, flows slightly north of east and empties into the Thames 
near Abingdon. The valley of the Ock from Shrivenham to Abingdon, 
a distance of about fifteen miles, is the famous Vale of White Horse. 

17. ghost was laid. A ghost is “laid” when its power to do harm 
is destroyed. On account of their sacred office, parsons were popularly 
supposed to have peculiar power in the laying of ghosts. How is this 
belief in the power of the parson illustrated in the Sir Roger de Coverley 
Papers? 

19. Richard Swiveller or Mr. Stiggins. Richard Swiveller is an 
irresponsible character in Dickens’s Old Curiosity Shop. Mr. Stiggins 
is a hypocritical parson in the same author’s Pickwick Papers, made 
their eyrie. An eyrie, or aerie, is the loftily-placed nest of a bird 
of prey, particularly of the eagle. Note the double appropriateness 
of the word as applied to a Roman camp on the highest point of a 
hill. 

20. sappers and miners. Names applied to the privates in the 
corps of Royal Engineers of England, ordnance map. A military 
map made by the Royal Engineers. Balaam. See Numbers XXII, 

296 


NOTES 


297 

and XXIII. Alfred. Alfred the Great (871-901). “Alfred was the 
noblest as he was the most complete embodiment of all that is great, 
all that is lovable, in the English temper. He combined as no other 
man has ever combined its practical energy, its patient and enduring 
force, its profound sense of duty, the reserve and self-control that 
steadies in it a wide outlook and a restless daring, its temperance and 
fairness, its frank geniality, its sensitiveness to affection, its poetic 
tenderness, its deep and passionate religion. . . . Scholar and soldier, 
artist and man of business, poet and saint, his character kept that 
perfect balance which charms us in no other Englishman save Shake- 
speare.” Green: History of the English People, Vol. I, ch. 3. Ashdown 
was iEscendun in the old chronicle, not iEscendum as Hughes gives it. 
Although Alfred was in the battle, he was not king at the time. The 
victory was won by his brother .^thelred. It was the battle of Ethan- 
dun, won by King Alfred in 878, rather than the earlier battle of Ash- 
down, “which broke the Danish power.” Alma. The English, 
French, and Turks won a decisive victory over the Russians at the 
Alma River in 1854. The battle was one of the important engage- 
ments of the Crimean War. 

22 . Inigo Jones. A celebrated architect of the time of James I 
and Charles I. 

24 . Marianas. Mariana, a character in Shakespeare’s Measure 
for Measure, lived “in the moated grange.” Consult Tennyson’s 
Mariana. 

27 . hop-picking. Every year the farmers of Kent and Surrey 
require large numbers of laborers to assist in the picking of hops, 
strawberries, and cherries. The unskilled workers from London 
respond to these seasonal opportunities, finding in them a change 
from the monotony of daily existence somewhat as wealthier people 
find relief in trips to famous resorts on the Continent. 

28 . learned poet. William Wordsworth. “The child is father 
of the man” is a quotation from a little poem beginning, “My heart 
leaps up.” 

37 . breaks most heads. To draw blood by a blow on the head 
with quarterstaff, backsword, or singlestick has been a favorite pas- 
time with Englishmen for many generations. Readers of the Robin 
Hood Ballads will recall the skill of Friar Tuck at this game. 


NOTES 


298 

38. “Full twenty times ” — etc. These lines are quoted from 
Wordsworth’s Peter Bell, Part I. 

42. Sir Roger de Coverley. The most important fictitious char- 
acter in the Spectator of Addison and Steele. Sir Roger was noted 
for clinging to styles of dress long after they were out of fashion. 

43. Yeast. The reference is to Yeast; a Problem, a novel written 
by Charles Kingsley in 1848. 

44. Christian Young Men’s Societies. The Young Men’s Chris- 
tain Association in America is not open to the charge of “religious 
Pharisaism.” What is there in this organization that would be likely 
to meet the approval of Thomas Hughes? 

46. eye of a needle. See Mark, X, 25. 

49. mute inglorious Miltons. See Gray’s Elegy in a Country 
Churchyard. 

61. Crichton (pronoimced Criton). James Crichton, a Scotch 
gentleman of the sixteenth century, on account of his reputed learning 
and many accomplishments has been called “the Admirable Crich- 
ton.” While still a young man he was killed in a street brawl in the 
Italian city where he was living at the time. The obscurity in which 
his history is enveloped has doubtless served to enhance his reputa- 
tion. 

62. Tory. The division of political opinion in England in the 
reign of Charles II led to the formation of two great parties. About 
the year 1680 these parties received the names Whig and Tory. 
The Tories were the supporters of the king and of the established 
church. The Whigs, on the other hand, favored a limitation of the 
royal prerogative and a larger toleration for all forms of Protestantism. 

63. Swiss Family Robinson. The name of a popular book for 
children. It narrates the adventures of a family which was ship- 
wrecked on a desert island. 

69. public schools. Not free elementary and high schools sup- 
ported by taxation as in America, but endowed tuition schools that 
prepare students for entrance into the universities, ushers. In an 
English school an usher is an assistant teacher; in addition to teach- 
ing he has other duties, some of which are almost menial in character. 

80. we never wear caps here. Traditions and customs of a school 
or college community frequently have a greater formative effect 


NOTES 


299 

upon the pupils than that produced by the rules and the regulations 
of the authorities. No boy who has any regard for the good opinion 
of his fellows will venture to violate one of these unwritten laws. 
They constitute the spirit of the school and measure the prevailing 
sentiment of the student-body. 

Make a list of as many school and college customs as you can re- 
call. Give your opinion concerning the influence of each of these 
customs upon the pupils. 

84. Mentor. In Greek mythology Mentor was the friend to 
whom Ulysses, before leaving for Troy, intrusted his house and the 
education of his son Telemachus. Hence, a Mentor is a faithful 
friend and adviser. 

85. the island. One of the conspicuous features of the Rugby 
school playground, or close, was a mound which is supposed to have 
been erected by the ancient Britons over the grave of one of their 
heroes. In later times some monks who took possession, surrounded 
it with a moat for defense. The dry ditch, which was still unfilled 
in Tom Brown’s day, gave the mound the appearance of an island. 
On this spot some of the important school events occurred, island 
fagging. Several weeks before the annual Speech Day at Easter 
the boys of the sixth form compelled their fags to dig up the surface 
of the island (mound) with rude and unsuitable implements and to 
set out, in the island garden thus prepared, flowers and plants in 
honor of the visitors who were expected to grace the day with their 
presence. This hard labor was imposed upon the fags in accordance 
with recognized school tradition. 

Fags were the younger boys, whom custom compelled to perform 
menial duties at the behest of boys of the upper forms. 

91. in the consulship of Plancus. This is merely a stock phrase 
indicating the good old days that are no more. There is no allusion 
to the follies which were characteristic of the consulship of Plancus 
in Rome. 

96. Old Guard. In all European armies the finest troops con- 
stitute the Guards. The Guards in Napoleon’s army had performed 
many heroic deeds and they were considered invincible. Napoleon 
was defeated at Waterloo, Belgium, in 1815. 

106. Balliol. Balliol College, Oxford, has long been noted for 


NOTES 


300’ 

its high academic standards. It is considered a great honor to win 
one of its scholarships, which frequently carry with them consider- 
able monetary value also. 

136. Triste lupus stabulis. From Vergil’s Eclogues, III, 80. “A 
sad thing is the wolf to the flocks, as also blight to the ripening fruit, 
and heavy winds to the trees.” The luckless boy thought that the 
neuter adjective “triste” was in agreement with the masculine noun 
“lupus.” 

137. hands . . . against them. An allusion to Ishmael, the out- 
cast. See Genesis, XVI, 12. 

139. Pickwick. As Dickens’s novel entitled The Posthumous 
Papers of the Pickwick Club appeared in serial form in 1836, this 
allusion is one of the means of fixing the date of the events in Tom 
Brown's School Days. 

143. Coventry. Coventry is a town in Warwickshire, England. 
The word means “convent town.” To send one to Coventry, there- 
fore, is to exclude him from the class or society in which he ordinarily 
moves. 

158. lives after them. An allusion to Shakespeare’s Julius Ccesar, 
III, 2. 

159. Kossuth, Garibaldi, Mazzini. These were revolutionary 
patriots and reformers of the middle of the nineteenth century. Kos- 
suth was a Hungarian; Garibaldi and Mazzini were Italians. 

166. lotus-eaters. According to ancient mythology the lotus was 
a plant which caused all who ate of it to forget their native land and to 
lead a life of careless, dreamy indolence. Read Homer’s Odyssey, 
Book IX, and Tennyson’s The Lotus-eaters. 

175. Marryat's tales of the sea, particularly his Mr. Midshipman 
Easy, have been very popular with boys. 

183. Elijah. For an account of Elijah and of the still, small voice 
which addressed him in Mount Horeb, read I Kings, XIX. 

191. Utopian. Utopia is the title of a book published by Sir 
Thomas More in 1516. The book explains the ideal form of govern- 
ment which prevails in the commonwealth of Utopia. Since Utopia 
and its scheme of government are merely the imaginative concep- 
tions of the author, the word “Utopian” has come to mean “fanci- 
ful,” “visionary,” “idealistic.” 


NOTES 


301 

194. Reform Bill. In 1832 a highly important bill looking toward 
a reform of the electoral system of England was passed by Parliament 
under the leadership of Lord Grey. 

200. Sebastopol. A Russian city, famous for a long siege in the 
Crimean War. 

206. Winchester is the oldest of the great English public schools. 
It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1387. In this school 
Dr. Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby in Tom Brown's 
School Days, received his preparation for Oxford. 

216. birds couldn’t count. This is one of the numerous asides 
of the author from which the reader is able to tell that the story 
of Tom Brown is autobiographical. Hughes has specifically de- 
clared that he did not intend to portray the life of any particular 
person. It is impossible to read the book, however, without thinking 
that the author’s effort to be impersonal has not altogether suc- 
ceeded 

222. Surgebat, etc. “MacNevis rose up and thereupon of his own 
accord boasted, ‘ For your sake I will fight this fierce MacWalter.’ ” 
This is a poem by an Eton schoolboy. 

223. Russians. As Tom Brown's School Days was published in 
1857, the year following the close of the Crimean War, in which the 
English were opposed to the Russians, this allusion was quite in- 
telligible to English readers. 

225. most beautiful woman. Paris, the son of the king and queen 
of Troy, was so captivated by the beauty of Helen, wife of the 
king of Sparta, that he carried her away with him to his own home 
and thus gave to the Greeks a cause for beginning the Trojan 
War. 

The Greek quotation at the bottom of this page is from Homer’s 
Iliad, Book XXIV, 11. 771-2. Bryant translates the passage as fol- 
lows: — 

“Thou didst take my part 
With kindly admonitions, and restrain 
Their tongues with soft address and gentle words.” 

239. Marylebone. The great cricket matches are played annually 
on the “Lords’ Cricket Grounds” in the borough of Marylebone, 


NOTES 


302 

London. Teams from the public schools as well as from the univer- 
sities play their important games on these grounds. 

270 . Rugby poet. Arthur Hugh Clough, the Rugby poet here 
referred to, was an intimate friend of Matthew Arnold, the son of 
Dr. Thomas Arnold. Matthew Arnold wrote Thyrsis, a celebrated 
elegiac poem, in honor of Clough. 

278 . habeas corpus. Literally, “you may have the body”; a 
principle of law in accordance with which no man may be held in 
prison indefinitely without the right of a hearing before a judge. 

290 . Com laws. These laws, passed in 1815, were a protective 
tariff which imposed heavy duties upon imported wheat in order to 
maintain high prices for the producers of wheat in England. After 
much agitation, they were finally repealed in 1846. Arnold of Rugby 
is dead. Dr. Arnold died suddenly on June 12, 1842, the day before 
he was forty-seven years old*. 



















